‘Liberty not absolute’: Why Orissa High Court refused bail to MD of Sambandh Finserve in Rs 100 crore fraud case

Allegation of financial fraud

• The petitioner was the Managing Director of Sambandh Finserve Private Limited (SFPL), a non-banking financial company having its corporate office at Civil Township, Rourkela.

• It had the permission of the RBI to carry out the business of Non-Banking Financial Services (NBFC) and Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) operations.
• The petitioner, being the Managing Director of SFPL, approached another NBFC registered with RBI, namely, Annapurna Financial Private Limited (AFPL), for financial support to carry out financial activities effectively by giving loans to different individual entities and Joint Liability Groups.
• The case originated from an FIR lodged by AFPL, which alleged that the petitioner, Deepak Kindo, deceitfully secured term loans totaling Rs 5 crores by submitting a fabricated bank statement.
• The statement reportedly showed a closing balance of over Rs 17.51 crores, while the actual balance was a mere Rs 15.28 lakhs.
• Further investigation by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) unearthed a much larger conspiracy.

Arguments

• Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Yasobant Das argued for bail based on Kindo’s extended custody and the “snail’s pace” of the trial.
• He further contended that the dispute was a “mere breach of contract” between two corporate entities.
• Representing the state, an additional public prosecutor, S C Pradhan, strongly opposed the application and submitted that the petitioner was involved in seven other criminal cases in different states of the country.

‘Petitioner was involved in seven criminal cases’

• A person accused of a non-bailable offence may also be entitled to bail, if such a person otherwise makes out a case for the grant of bail, even when there exists a prima facie case against such a person, provided there is a need to release such a person on bail where facts demand so.
• The submission advanced on behalf of the state reveals that the petitioner was arrested after the issuance of look out circular.
• That too, he was apprehended from the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border while trying to flee to Visakhapatnam.

• The plea of long detention of the petitioner, it appears that the petitioner has been in custody for just about four years, but the custody of a person may not be the sole deciding factor in a bail application.
• Especially when his conduct is not aboveboard, and the allegation is serious.
• It is claimed by the prosecution that the petitioner had tried to evade his arrest and wanted to flee, and his apprehension was after the issuance of look out circular, which was not denied by the petitioner.

Other court rulling

• Recently, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of an accountant implicated in a multi-crore corruption scandal involving the Integrated Cooperative Development Project (ICDP).
• Justice Sumeet Goel ruled that the petitioner failed to demonstrate any substantial change in circumstances since his first bail application was rejected in January 2026, and further characterised the petitioner’s conduct as an evasion of the legal process.
• On March 11, the court said that while liberty and dignity of an individual must be held high, no one can be permitted to subvert and cause devolution in the process of justice.