Nagpur: Following Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court granting him bail and suspending sentence in the NDCCB scam, Sunil Kedar walked out free from Nagpur Central Jail on Wednesday.
Kedar’s release was greeted with joy by bursting of crackers by his supporters. Moreover, a rally was taken out in the city to celebrate the release of former Congress MLA. Kedar was garlanded and waved to the supporters. It is reported that the police took precautions so that law and order problem does not arise due to the crowd. Sunil Kedar was brought out from the jail through the back road to avoid any untoward incident..
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Thursday 12 Dec. 2024
Notably, in a major relief to Sunil Kedar, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court suspended the order of the lower court in Rs 150-crore NDCCB scam and granted him bail. The senior leader was accused of diverting bank funds to private entities for the purchase of government securities, leading to substantial financial losses for the bank.
Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke, presiding over the hearing, granted bail on a surety bond of Rs 1 lakh, with the condition of making a monthly appearance before the trial court on the 1st of each month. Post bail order, supporters gathered outside the High Court and chanted Sunil Kedar agae badho hum tumhare saath hai.”
Earlier, MLA Kedar approached the sessions court after his conviction in the bank scam for a stay on his conviction by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate court and seeking bail. District Judge RS Patil, after considering the arguments presented, had refused to stay on conviction and bail plea on December 30, last year. Earlier, on December 23, last year JMFC court had sentenced MLA Kedar and five others, including the general manager and directors of the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB), as well as the director of ‘Home Trade Pvt Ltd,’ to five years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10 lakh each. They were found guilty of misappropriating funds of the NDCCB.
Notably, six persons were convicted, while three others were acquitted in this complex legal battle that lasted for almost 20 years. Kedar, as the then Chairman, and the general manager, Ashok Choudhary, were obliged to invest the funds as per the prescribed laws, but they breached this norm. Such criminal breach of trust was deemed a serious offense, capable of severely impacting the financial stability of the cooperative bank and affecting thousands of members and staff associated with it.
