Delhi court quashes all cases against Sandesera brothers

SIx years after the sublime margaret court gave net clearance to quash all crook proceedings against the promoters of Sterling Biotech Ltd, Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara and Nitin Sandesara, a Delhi court on Tuesday closed all cases against the brothers.As a result of the full and final payment last week, when the brothers deposited ₹5,111 crore in compliance with the assurance given to the apex court, two cases each registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2017, the Fugitive Economic Offenders 2018 Act proceedings initiated by ED, Series Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) probe under the Companies Act, and an income tax investigation under the Black Money Act were quashed.On November 19, a Supreme Court bench comprising justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi had agreed in principle to quash all criminal proceedings against the Sandesara brothers, subject to their depositing an additional ₹5,100 crore to meet the demands of banks under their one-time settlement.“As noted above, the order dated November 19 has been complied with by the petitioners, and therefore, the apex court quashed the proceedings. As a consequence thereof, the present proceeding has been closed on account of quashing by the apex court,” special judge Shailender Malik at Delhi’s Rouse Avenue courts said in an order on Tuesday.The judge further noted that bail bonds and surety bonds furnished by all the accused persons in the case “stand discharged”.In its November 19 order, the court accepted a proposal placed before it in a sealed cover by solicitor general Tushar Mehta. Under the proposal, the Sandesara brothers agreed to deposit ₹5,100 crore as a full and final settlement of all outstanding dues arising from FIRs registered by the CBI, enforcement case information reports (ECIRs) filed by the ED, attachments under the prevention of money laundering act, proceedings under the FEO Act, prosecutions by the SFIO, proceedings under the Black Money act, and income tax complaints.The court had directed that the amount be deposited in tranches before the Supreme Court registry, to be kept in a short-term interest-bearing fixed deposit and distributed proportionately among lender banks after verification by the registrar.The bench had also recorded the financial background of the case, noting that while the original CBI FIR alleged a fraud of ₹5,383 crore, the total one-time settlement value stood at ₹6,761 crore. Of this, the Sandesaras had already deposited around ₹3,507.63 crore under various heads. Parallel insolvency proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal had resulted in recoveries of about ₹1,192 crore for banks. After adjusting these amounts, the remaining dues were assessed at roughly ₹2,061 crore — far lower than the ₹5,100 crore offered by the brothers to bring all proceedings to a close.