A special court in Chennai has denied bail to Ravi Parthasarathy, former Chairman of the bankrupt Infrastructure Leasing Financial Services (IL&FS). Ravi was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of state police, for allegedly defrauding investors to the tune of Rs. 200 crore. He was refused bail recently by the Special Court constituted under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act.

Parthasarathy, one of the accused in the case, was arrested on June 9 for various offences under the IPC and the TNPID Act by the Economic Offences wing-II in Guindy and remanded in judicial custody.

In his bail application, Parthasarathy stated he had resigned as director and non-executive chairman of IL&FS and also as a nominee director of other group companies including ITNL in 2018 itself. ITNL is a company engaged in building of toll roads and bridges and as such it is not a financial establishment for the purpose of attraction of Section 5 read with section 2(3) of TNPID Act.

Rejecting the bail plea last week, the special court noted, "At this juncture, the contention of the petitioner that the TNPID Act is not applicable and no territorial jurisdiction cannot be entertained by this court. Where medical facilities can be made available to the accused by the jail authorities, the accused is not entitled to get bail on health ground."

"As pointed out by the special public prosecutor, the investigation is in preliminary stage. In view of the above circumstances, this court is not inclined to allow the bail petition," Jothiraman added.

IANS had first reported that Parthasarathy was arrested on June 9 by the Economic Offences Wing of Chennai Police (EOW-Chennai) from Mumbai and produced before the special TNPID court on June 10, which remanded him to judicial custody till June 24. Subsequently, on the plea of EOW-Chennai, the special court granted three-day police custody of the accused.

The EOW-Chennai, which is probing the scam under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors (TNPID) (in Financial Establishment) Act, 1997, under Sections 420, 409, 120B r/w 109 of the IPC, termed the case as "one of the biggest economic frauds in the history of our country".

The total default caused to the entire creditors is approximately to the tune of Rs. 1 lakh crore.

Seeking the remand of Parthasarathy, the EOW-Chennai said that his custodial interrogation may reveal various crucial facts which are in his exclusive domain, as he was the key managerial personnel directly involved and in-charge of the affairs of IL&FS scam and active conspirator in this entire case.

"This is a mammoth scam involving huge sum of monies which have been siphoned off/diverted by the accused in connivance with other persons. His personal remand is the need of the hour and in the interest of investigation under the offence of Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors, 1997 and other IPC offences, to secure the ends of justice," EOW-Chennai had said.

The EOW-Chennai remand note observed that the Union of India had to intervene since the activities of the IL&FS group affected the interests of the economy of the country.

The companies were set up as a vehicle of fraud and innocent depositors were cheated and their livelihoods were taken away by virtue of the fraud committed by Parthasarathy, who controlled the arm and mind of the IL&FS group and was responsible for managing its day-to-day affairs and played a major role in the scam.