Businessman Sudhir Valia seeks anticipatory bail in Rs 1,000 crore financial fraud case

A court on Monday didn’t pass any order on interim protection sought by businessman Sudhir Valia in an alleged Rs 1,000 crore financial fraud case in which Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor is an accused.

Additional sessions judge YP Manathkar, presiding over the matter, noted that the “allegations made in FIR are serious” and that it is “necessary to consider arguments of both sides in detail before passing any order.”

Fearing arrest in the case, Valia has sought anticipatory bail. He had also pleaded for interim protection until his main plea was decided. The matter will be next heard on June 1. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police has registered a fresh FIR against Kapoor, Valia, who is director of Suraksha Asset Reconstruction Limited (Suraksha ARC), and others for alleged illegal transfer of mortgaged property worth Rs 1,000 crore.

The case has been registered at Worli police station on a complaint filed by Lakhminder Dayal Singh, associated with Saffair Land Development, a sister concern of HDIL. As per the FIR, another HDIL group company, Privilege Power and Infrastructure, had taken a loan of Rs 300 crore from the Worli branch of Yes Bank in 2015.

Due to a financial crisis, Saffair Land Development sought a loan of Rs 150 crore, which was sanctioned by the bank in 2016. Properties valued at Rs 1,000 crore of HDIL and its group companies were mortgaged with the bank for securing the loan, which was to be repaid within 36 months. But in June 2018, Singh learnt that Yes Bank had authorised Suraksha Asset Reconstruction Pvt Ltd to recover Rs 176.53 crore from his company even though the period of repayment was yet to get over.

Singh alleged that the mortgaged property valued at Rs 1,000 crore was illegally transferred to Suraksha ARC, even though the company had not been declared a Non-Performing Asset (NPA), as noted in a 2019 special audit report.

The properties were sold off at below-the-market rate, he claimed. The complainant also alleged that Yes Bank provided margin money of Rs 22.5 crore to Suraksha ARC by routing it through multiple accounts as part of a conspiracy to grab the mortgaged properties.

In his pre-arrest plea, Valia denied the allegations, stating he has been falsely implicated with malicious intent.

The entire case is an attempt by a suspended director to weaponize the criminal justice system over a concluded, fully documented financial transaction, the plea said, adding that Valia is merely one of six directors at Suraksha ARC, a public limited company.

The FIR fails to attribute any specific meeting, email, instruction, or overt act to him personally, nor does it allege that he received any wrongful personal gain, Valia said.