The Bombay High Court (HC) Thursday has asked the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court to defer framing of charges in the Yes Bank-DHFL case until April 1.

This, after jailed banker and Yes Bank cofounder, Rana Kapoor through his counsel Vijay Aggarwal, moved a petition claiming that the federal agency did not secure the requisite approval under the amended provisions of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.Kapoor is deemed to be a public servant in terms of Section.46A of the Banking Regulation Act and thus, his acts are covered under the PC Act.

In March 2020, the CBI had registered an FIR against Kapoor, the former Managing Director of Yes Bank Limited, and twelve others including Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL on the allegation that Kapoor and his family had obtained undue benefit to the tune of Rs. 600 crores through their companies for an investment of Rs. 3700 crores made by Yes Bank in DHFL’s non-convertible debentures.

Pursuant to investigation in the said FIR, the CBI in June of that year had filed a chargesheet before the CBI court under several offences under the PC Act and IPC. In void of the sanction, the special court had remanded the matter back to magistrate court. Subsequently, the CBI had sought for approval u/s 17A of PC Act from Yes Bank board. Further, in August 2021, a supplementary chargesheet was filed by the CBI whereby the special court vide its order took cognizance of offences under the provisions of Indian Penal Code and PC Act against Additional Accused persons and summoned them.

Advocate Aggarwal argued that a grave error had been committed by the CBI in the matter as the FIR was registered on 07th March, 2020 without mandatory approval.

Another argument made was that the said approval given by new MD & CEO of YBL was not a valid approval u/s 17A of the PC Act as the ‘Competent Authority’ which had to give the approval was the Reserve Bank of India as the removal of his client was only with the prior approval of the Reserve Bank of India, and thus, the competent authority to consider the aspect of approval was the RBI and not the Yes Bank through its Board, much less, the MD of Yes Bank unilaterally.

Another argument taken by Rana Kapoor was that the entire investigation conducted by CBI in the matter was illegal being in violation of the Section 6 of the Delhi Police Establishment Act as the Government of Maharashtra had withdrawn its consent granted to CBI vide order dated 21.10.2020 and therefore, CBI could not have conducted its investigation in the matter.