Sessions Court rejects stay on Sunil Kedar’s conviction, suspension of sentence, bail
| Date :31-Dec-2023 |
Special Correspondent
OUTRIGHTLY refusing any leniency to former minister and senior Congress leader Sunil Chhatrapal Kedar convicted in the infamous Rs 153 crore Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) scam, District Judge-12 and Additional Sessions Judge R S Patil-Bhosale turned down his plea for grant of stay on conviction, suspension of the sentence and bail on Saturday. The Sessions Court would decide the pleas of other convicts --- Ashok Namdeo Chaudhari, former General Manager, NDCCB, Ketan Kantilal Seth (Mumbai), stock broker, Amit Sitapati Verma (Ahmedabad), Subodh Chandadayal Bhandari and Nandkishor Shankarkal Trivedi -- for suspension of sentence and grant of bail on January 2 next. Kedar (61), who was disqualified from Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after he along with five others were sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10 lakh each for their involvement in the infamous NDCCB scam, would move the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court challenging the Sessions Court Order on Monday. Five times MLA from Saoner, Kedar is cooling his heels in the Central Jail Nagpur after he was discharged from the Government Medical College & Hospital.
Declining to stay Kedar’s conviction, the Sessions Court was satisfied that there was documentary evidence against Kedar and he hatched a criminal conspiracy (when he was the Chairman of NDCCB) with the broking firms and swindled the hard earned money of the farmers and others for his and other convicts’ vested interest. Citing the observation of the Supreme Court in Ravikant S Patil versus Sarvabhouma S Bagali case that “an order granting stay on conviction is not the rule but an exception to be resorted to in rare matters depending upon the fact of a case,” Additional Sessions Judge Patil-Bhosale rejected Kedar’s application. Special Public Prosecutor Adv Ajay Misar (Nashik) and District GP Adv Nitin Telgote represented the State. Adv Devendra Chauhan, Adv Gopal Agrawal, Adv Avinash Gupta, Adv Girish Purohit, Adv Zeeshan Haq Zishan appeared for the convicts Sunil Kedar, Nandkishor Trivedi, Amit Verma, Ketan Seth and Ashok Choudhary respectively.
On December 22, Special Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Judge Jyoti Pekhale-Purkar convicted Kedar and five others after they were found involved in the scam. All the six were convicted for the offences under Sections 406, 409, 468, 471, 120-B and 34 of the IPC. The judgement in the matter came after more than two decades. However, the court acquitted Suresh Peshkar, the then chief accountant of the bank, Mahendra Radhyeshyam Agrawal, and Shreeprakash Shantilal Poddar (Kolkata), as the prosecution failed to substantiate the charges against them. The scam had surfaced in 2002 when Kedar was the chairman of the bank. He conspired with other accused and flouted rules while ‘investing’ the bank's funds in G-secs. The funds were routed through the investment firms Home Trade Securities, Syndicate Management Services, Giltedge Management Services, (all from Mumbai), Indramani Merchants Pvt Ltd and Century Dealers Pvt Ltd (both from Kolkata) which neither bought securities nor paid back the money, causing a huge loss to the bank.