The Bombay High Court deferred the hearing of the pleas moved by top officials of Edelweiss Group, who have been booked for abetting the suicide of art director Nitin Desai and sought interim protection from coercive action, to Monday, August 21. A division bench of Justices Nitin W Sambre and Rajesh N Laddha on Friday was hearing pleas by Rashesh Shah, chairman of Edelweiss Financial Services, and Raj Kumar Bansal, CEO of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited, along with its official Keyur Mehta and Insolvency Resolution Professional (IRP) Jitender Kothari. During the hearing of the case, officials of Edelweiss Group said Desai had started delaying his loan repayment schedules from the end of 2018 but repaid the loans on time from 2016 till then. The accused claimed that they had merely followed the official and legal process of recovery and sought to quash the FIR registered against them. On August 11, the high court, while issuing a notice to Desai's wife and police, had refused to grant immediate relief to petitioners stating that the accused can wait till the hearing on August 18. A National Award-winning art director, Desai was found dead in his studio on August 2. In an audio note seized from his studio, he allegedly blamed Bansal, Shah and three others for his financial condition, police had said. In their plea, Shah and Bansal said they met Desai only once after the loan disbursal and merely took lawful action for recovering the debt from Desai. Senior advocate Amit Desai, appearing for Shah and Bansal, submitted that Desai had approached the ECL Finance Ltd, a non-banking finance arm of the Edelweiss Group, which lent Rs 181 crore to Desai’s firm ND’s Art World between 2016 and 2018. It was submitted that in 2016, a loan of Rs 150 crore was sanctioned to be used for any corporate purpose, including a theme park owned by a company promoted by Desai, and the security for the loan was the land and guarantees given by him and his wife. Advocate Desai argued that a part of the loan was used to repay an earlier debt and in 2018, Nitin Desai sought another loan of Rs. 38 crore, of which Rs. 31 crore was sanctioned and disbursed. After the judge asked if the repayment was done in a timely manner when the second loan was sanctioned, Amit Desai said between 2016 and 2018, the repayment was done on schedule. "From the end of 2018, there was a delay in the repayment schedule. Let me not call it default. There were delays," said the lawyer. The senior counsel then referred to a Supreme Court decision in interior designer Anvay Naik abetment to suicide case against Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami along with past HC judgements and argued that abetment involved constant instigation and causing mental stress with mens rea (criminal intention), which is not the case. Amit Desai said the Supreme Court had expounded the entire law of Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC in Goswami's case and similarly in the present matter, the FIR does not establish the ingredients of the offence of abetment of suicide by the petitioners. "If we have to protect the importance of the financial capital of the country, then the use of criminal action should also be such that we do not lose the standing of being the financial capital," Amit Desai argued. When the lawyer sought interim protection from coercive action for the petitioners, the bench responded, "What will happen in two days? We have kept the matter for hearing on Monday." On July 25, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal had initiated the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process against ND’s Art World Private Limited in view of an outstanding debt of Rs 252.48 crore. On August 1, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) dismissed Desai’s appeal against the NCLT order.
