HC denies bail to men who assisted LTTE woman swindle Rs 40 cr

CHENNAI: A division bench of Madras High Court had rejected the bail application and plea challenging the extension of remand to three men who were arrested on several charges of assisting an LTTE woman for trying to swindle Rs 40 crore from the bank account of a deceased woman from Mumbai.

The division bench of Justice PN Prakash and Justice RMT Teekaa Raman passed the orders on dismissing the criminal appeal petitions filed by T Keeniston Fernando and K Baskaran.

The appellants prayed for a direction to set aside the order of the principal sessions judge, Chengalpattu extending their remand period from 90 days to 180 days and they sought bail. The cases against the accused are currently pending before the NIA special court, Poonamallee.

After hearing the arguments, the judges dismissed the appeal observing that the appellants had filed the case on April 4, only after the NIA filed the final report on March 29.

“The order under challenge is dated January 3, 2022. The NIA completed the investigation and filed a final report on March 29. The present appeal challenging the order dated January 3 has been filed only on April 4. Therefore, after the filing of the final report on 29.03.2022, the indefeasible right for default bail [even assuming for a moment, that it had accrued to the accused, though on facts, we have held it had not accrued] stood extinguished,” the bench ruled.

The case of the prosecution is that one Umakanthan, an LTTE man came to know that Rs.40 crores is in the bank account of Mumbai based woman named Hamida. After Hamida died, Umakanthan sent one Mary to India, to claim the money from Hamida's account by producing fake Adhar, Passport, and Power of Attorney documents as if Hamida granted the permissions. The appellants had assisted Mary in this operation.

Before executing their plan, Mary was caught by the Q Branch in Chennai airport. It is noted that the Q branch booked Mary and the appellants here under the UAPA. When the appellants first approached the Principal Sessions Judge, Chengalpattu for bail, their pleas were rejected on January 3.

In between, their case was handed over to the NIA. The appellants approached the HC against the trial court’s order. Advocate M Radhakrishnan for the accused submitted that the principal sessions judge rejected the bail plea without hearing the accused. However, the HC rejected such submissions observing that the sessions court had sent proper notice as per the directions of SC in various cases.