MUMBAI: Siphoning of public money must be viewed very seriously by courts because such offences seriously challenge the financial stability of the country, the Bombay High Court recently said while dismissing a petition related to an alleged ₹464.41-crore bank fraud.
A division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and justice Gautam Akhand made the remarks last week while rejecting a petition filed by a Mumbai resident, an accused in the fraud, who challenged the look-out circulars (LOCs) issued against him. The bench said that the petitioner, Nimesh Navinchandra Shah, had “no justifiable reason” to invoke the high court’s intervention.
Shah had approached the high court urging it to quash the LOCs against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Bank of Baroda. He argued that he became aware of the LOCs only when he was stopped at the Mumbai airport in May 2025 while trying to fly to Abu Dhabi to attend a family wedding.
The CBI has registered an FIR against Shah’s company, Max Flex & Imaging Systems Ltd, its directors, including him, and some other people associated with it. The agency has alleged that the accused obtained funds from a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India between 2011 and 2016, and caused them a wrongful loss of ₹464.41 crore.
The specific charge against Shah was that he allegedly fudged the accounts by recording a disproportionate increase in debtors and inventories and substantial write-offs, and diverted funds to related parties and entities associated with directors and employees.
The bench said that an accused person like Shah cannot take exception to the LOCs issued against him. It added that the court “cannot be oblivious of the registration of a case against him” by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate.