Calcutta High Court - Port Blair
Kuldeep Rai Sharma vs Directorate Of Enforcement on 10 February, 2026
IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
[ CIRCUIT BENCH AT PORT BLAIR ]
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CRM(SB)/1/2026 In Re:- An application for bail under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 filed on 22.01.2026 in connection with FIR No. 14 of 2025 dated 15.05.2025 registered at Police Station Crime & Economic Offences under Section 406, 409, 420, 463, 467, 468,471 and 120 B of the IPC.
And In the matter of Kuldeep Rai Sharma Vs Directorate of Enforcement Mr. Milon Mukherjee, Sr. Adv.
(through virtual mode)
Mr. Mohammed Tabraiz
Mr. Mohammed Sharukh ... for the petitioner
Mr. Zoheb Hossain, Sr. Adv.
(through virtual mode)
Mr. V. D. Sivabalan
Mr. Arun S. Kumar ... for the respondent
February 10, 2026
[AKB]
Item No.8
Submission and counter submission of the learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner Mr. Milion Mukherjee and learned Senior Advocate for the respondent, Mr. Zoheb Hossain have been recorded in the order dated February 09, 2026. Let such order be reproduced herein below:
"The learned senior counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Milon Mukherjee has submitted that petitioner has been falsely implicated as he was a political person. There is no ingredient of Section 420 of IPC nor 409 of IPC in the GR Case No. 1 of 2025 against the petitioner. There is no evidence to demonstrate that even a single rupee was received and/or transferred in the account of the petitioner or his family members from amongst the account holders who had received loans from the bank. The ingredient of section 406 of IPC is missing in the present case as the prosecution has failed to demonstrate even prima facie that the petitioner dishonestly misappropriated funds. Not a single case has been placed before the Hon'ble Court that he has committed any forgery in respect of any documents. Prosecution did not place a single case to attract the aforesaid sections along with Section 467 of the IPC. There is no ingredients of offences under Section 468/471 of IPC against the present petitioner. Mr. Mukherjee, learned senior counsel has 2 further submitted that the present petitioner was holding the post of Vice Chairman of the bank until March, 2025 and never had the occasion either to officiate as Chairman of the bank or to officiate as Chairman of any of the meetings of the Executive Committee whereby the loans in the question was sanctioned. The present petitioner after the expiry of the tenure of the previous committee during March, 2025 assumed the charge as Chairman of the bank and no loan which is the subject matter of the proceeding before the learned Special Judge was sanctioned during his tenure as Chairman of the bank.
Mr. Mukherjee has also drawn the attention of this Court to the serious physical medical conditions of the present petitioner. He is suffering from Hypertension, Hyperthyroidism in 2014. He has since been on Anti Hypertensive and Thyroid medicine for the last 15 years he has been suffering from Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnoea for which he was advised to use Auto C PAP. He suffered two consecutive falls recently in this regard. Mr. Mukherjee, learned senior counsel has drawn the attention of this Court to the citation:
1) Subodh Kumar Goel vs. Enforcement Directorate, reported in 2025 SCC Online Cal 6939
2) Devki Nandan Garg vs. ED, reported in (2022) 6 High Court Cases (Del) 67 Mr. Mukherjee has also submitted statement of Kiran Lall recorded under Section 50 of PMLA shows that the present accused has received a sum of Rs. 99000/- from him and has depicted two deposit slips of Rs. 99000/- and Rs. 1 Lakhs in the prosecution complaint. He has also drawn the attention that the petitioner was an MP and his account was disclosed, monitored and examined by the Election Commission. The ED's allegation that the petitioner received a sum of Rs. 4 Lakhs from Shri. Raghuvir Singh as proceeds of crime is also not correct since it has been disclosed in his Income Tax Return. The co-accused statement under Section 50 of PMLA Act cannot be treated as a conclusive evidence unless there is corroborative evidence.
Mr. Mukherjee has also submitted that in the predicate offence, the prosecution will adduce 99 witnesses and submit 65,000 pages documents in evidence and there is no chance of early conclusion of the Trial. He is in custody for 204 days in custody. He may be enlarged on bail for any stringent conditions.
Mr. Zoheb Hossain, learned senior counsel has submitted that fraudulent sanction of loan of 11.60 Crores has been done from the side of the present petitioner when he was Vice Chairman of the bank and he influenced every members of the Board which sanctioned said fraudulent loans and also the members of the loan sanctioning committee.
The learned counsel has drawn the attention of this Court to 7.2 at page 69 of his affidavit and also to 7.14 at page 79 which discloses modus operandi of present petitioner. Shell companies were floated by Mr. Sanjay Lall and loans were sanctioned to those shell companies and such loans were sanctioned to those shell companies with the active guidance and influence of the present petitioner but the said shell companies were represented by dummy Directors.
The loans sanctioned were used for the purposes other than the purposes for which loan was taken. The funds were sent to the brother in law, father and also other family members. Mr. Hossain has further submitted that the petitioner is not suffering from any life threatening diseases as in the case K.Murugan, and the petitioner's health issues can be addressed through correctional home or its designated hospital. Rohit Tondan vs Directorate of Enforcement Judgement was referred to by Mr. Hussain in support of his contention.
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Mr. Mukherjee has further submitted that Kiran lall was not made a listed witness. Mr. Mukherjee has further added that the petitioner Kuldeep Rai Sharma was in custody in connection with predicate offences and after drawing up of the ECIR by the ED, production warrant of arrest was issued from the concerned Court and he was shown arrested in the concerned ECIR and documents were later handed over to the counsel for the petitioner and that was recorded in the order of the learned Special Judge. The FIR of the predicate offence was lodged on 15.05.2025 and the ECIR was drawn on 15.07.2025. Charge sheet in connection with predicate offences was submitted on 19.09.2025 and the production warrant was issued on 16.09.2025 and was produced on 17.09.2025 and on that day he was shown arrested in connection with ECIR.
Mr. Hussain has submitted that the ground of arrest can be intimated to the arrestee within twenty four hours of his arrest."
On 09.02.2026 this Court granted regular bail to one of the accused in connection with this case, namely, Mr. K. Murugan solely on the ground of his serious medical condition. His three foot fingers were amputated, one kidney was removed and the doctors opined that his existing kidney was also damaged. In view of such serious condition without touching the merits of the case, Mr. K.Murugan has been enlarged on bail on certain conditions. However, so far as the present petitioner is concerned it appears that he has been suffering from Hypertension, Hyperthyroidism and has been treated for Anti Hypertensive and Thyroid medicine for the last 15 years. He has also been suffering from Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnoea. Needless to mention that Hypertension, Hyperthyroidism can be well controlled and maintained if the appropriate medicines are taken and as he has been suffering from last fifteen years it indirectly means that he is under proper medication. Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnoea can also be mitigated by use of Auto C PAP at bed time. It cannot be said that they are life threatening deceases and can be equated with 4 the deceases suffered by the enlarged accused Mr. K.Murugan. There is no report from any Medical Board stating that the petitioner is suffering from life threatening diseases. In Subodh Goel's case (supra) Hon'ble High Court observed that all kinds of sickness or infirmity will not come under the exemption clause of Section 45 of PMLA Act. The case law of Devki Nandan Garg (supra) also deals with medical report which shows that the concerned accused had a kidney having 30% working capacity and another kidney was dead. In my view the petitioner is not suffering from any life threatening diseases and hence he is not entitled to bail on medical ground.
The allegation against the present petitioner is very much serious. Records show that he was an MP during relevant point of time and was holding the post of Vice Chairman of the concerned bank where his father Bhagat Singh was the Chairman. It cannot be said with certainty that there was no scope for the petitioner to influence the then Chairman of the concerned bank in view of the fact that Chairman was his father and hence it cannot be lost sight of us that he had the scope of influencing the decision of managing committee to grant loans to several persons. Another aspect that how an MP can hold 'office of profit' during his tenure as a Member of Parliament, is also a debatable issue, if the said position is not exempted under appropriate legislation. This power equation shows that the petitioner was certainly in a position to influence the decision of Managing Committee which granted the loans of 5 several hundred crores to different shell companies being represented by dummy directors.
It is true that the statements of a co-accused cannot be treated as substantive piece of evidence unless the same is corroborated by other materials on record.
After going through the materials on record it transpires that Sanjay Lal had given around Rs. 41 crores to Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma either in cash or through cheques in the name of persons created as dummy directors of shell companies floated for him for securing loans from ANSCB Ltd. in the name of those shell companies. He further stated that when Kuldeep Rai Sharma was unavailable, payments were handed over to Mr. Raghuveer Singh for onward submission of the commission amount to Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma. In support of such allegation several blank signed cheque leaves of several companies were taken into consideration before submitting the charge sheet. It is also found that Rs. 5.10 crores was paid through cheques from the bank account of the shell companies related to Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma. The funds were appeared to have been used for making the payment to land owners. It is also found that Rs. 5.50 crores was made through cheques in the account of Malina Das and her family members which was the amount for executing the power of attorney for her property in favour of one of the associates of the petitioner. There are several materials in this regard to show that crores of rupees were transferred with multilayered screening to the petitioner by his associates. The above facts were scrutinized from the 6 bank account statements of the shell companies. Therefore it is not correct that the ED has based its conclusion only on the basis of statements of the co-accused, but it has also collected corroborative materials in support of such contention. However, we know that by virtue of Section 50 (4) of the PMLA Act statements recorded under sub Section (2) and (3) has been given the status of a judicial proceedings within the meaning of Section 193 and section 228 of IPC. In this case the statements of several witnesses including the dummy directors of the shell companies were recorded. From the statements of several witnesses it transpires that Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma had helped many of his associates and known persons in sanctioning huge amount of loan to them in lieu of his personal benefits. It is also found that loan was sanctioned after mortgaging agricultural land in violation of provisions of SARFAESI Act. Statement of Nagrajan the driver of the petitioner also discloses that on various occasion he was given a white envelope containing cheques by Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma and was asked to carefully handover the same to Mr. Raghuveer Singh and sometimes as per his direction he also used to speak to Mr Raghuveer Singh using his Mobile number. He used to visit bank and Mr. Raghuveer gave him sealed packets containing cash for delivering the same to Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma. He has also stated although he was employed as a driver of the concerned bank but he was asked to work as personal driver of Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma.
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From the above materials on record and considering allegations made by the witnesses whose statement were recorded under Section 50 of the PMLA Act, I am not in a position to say at this stage that the petitioner is not guilty of the offences alleged to have been committed by him. Further judicial custody for 204/205 days cannot be said to be a long incarceration in view of the offences alleged to have been committed by him after using his official and political position. There are chances of influencing and intimidating the vulnerable witnesses, if he is enlarged on bail. Needless to mention that it is duty of the accused to establish that he was not involved with the commission of offence alleged to have been committed by him under of PMLA Act, but in this case, he is not able to override the restrictions imposed upon him under Section 45 of the PMLA Act.
In view of the above I am not inclined to allow the prayer for bail of the petitioner at this stage. The bail petition stands rejected.
CRM (SB)/1/2026 is, thus, dismissed.
(Apurba Sinha Ray, J.)