Allowing 16 Transfer (Criminal) Petitions filed by Ketan Kantilal Seth, co-accused in Nagpur District Central Co-operative Bank (NDCCB) Ltd scam case, Justice J K Maheshwari at the Supreme Court has, to meet the ends of justice and fair trial, transferred all 16 cases pending against him, in four different States to one court of Principal Civil and Sessions Judge at Fort in Mumbai. These cases have been now clubbed with three other similar cases pending before the said court. The Supreme Court has granted liberty to the Principal Judge to assign these cases to any of the courts situated within his jurisdiction for trial. He is also at liberty to assign some of these cases to any other courts also, if necessary.

 

The Apex-Court has further directed that the transferor courts shall immediately transfer the record of cases concerned to the court of Principal Civil Judge at Mumbai, which should reach it on or before October 31, 2022. The Supreme Court has directed all the accused in the cases concerned to appear before the said court in Mumbai on November 14, 2022 next. On assignment of these cases to the court(s) concerned, as directed the said court(s) shall frame the charges within a period of two months from the date of appearance, or on securing the presence of the accused persons, if absent; and thereafter the trial be concluded as expeditiously as possible, not later than two years. According to the Supreme Court, it is needless to observe that the examination of the witnesses in all cases will be recorded by the court(s) separately, thereby it should not cause any prejudice to any accused. In a nutshell, the prosecution story in majority of the cases revolves around one accused company M/s Home Trade Ltd, which is alleged to have engaged in the business of stock, securities, brokering and trading.

 

The allegations against the petitioner herein -- Ketan Seth and one Sanjay Hariram Agarwal -- are that they were the authorised signatories of the accused-company and while acting in the capacity of Directors of the said accused-company, they entered into several transactions dealing with Government securities and further sold the said securities without any authorisation. Further, it has been also alleged that the Government securities were not delivered within time and the money raised thereby has been misappropriated by the accused persons including the petitioner before the Supreme Court. Earlier, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court had completed proceedings in the case involving scam of more than crores of rupees at NDCCB and was awaiting the Supreme Court’s permission for passing the final verdict in the case. On May 13, 2022, through an interim order the Supreme Court had directed completion of these proceedings, but not to pronounce the judgment without its prior permission.

 

Taking note of all the oral intimation given by the State Government, the High Court division bench at Nagpur consisting of Justice S B Shukre and Justice Valmiki SA Menezes adjourned the hearing in the case by a month. Similarly, proceeding regarding recovery of the embezzled amount is pending before the retired High Court judge Justice J N Patel. Sunil Kedar, former Congress Minister and former Chairman of NDCCB, is the prime accused in the case. A PIL filed by Om Prakash Kamdi is pending at Nagpur Bench of the High Court here. For determining the responsibility of the guilty directors of the Bank in financial loss caused to it and to recover that, the inquiry has been ordered under Section 88 of Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act.