Last week the Allahabad High Court at Lucknow noted that Director of Amrapali group Mr Ajay Kumar tried to avoid a particular Bench and get his case listed before a particular Bench. The Court imposed a fine of Rs 50000 on Kumar and asked him to deposit the cost with Awadh Bar Association within two weeks.
Case Before the Court:-
The order was made when the Court was hearing an application filed by Kumar for modification of order dated 18.09.2020 whereby the Bench granted him bail for two months on medical grounds. The Court granted him bail on the condition that he will surrender after the expiry of sixty days and file an affidavit to that effect.
Hon’ble Court disposed of the bail application on 03.12.2020 after taking note of the undertaking of his counsel.
However, the order dated 18.09.2020 got merged with the final order dated 03.12.2020, and as per his counsel’s undertaking, he should have surrendered on or before 31.12.2020. But Kumar did not surrender, and instead, he filed an application for modification of interim order dated 18.12.2020 without attaching the final order dated 03.12.2020.
Observations of the Court
The Court observed that order dated 03.12.2020 was not annexed but order dated 18.09.2020 was annexed with the modification application. According to the Bench, this was done by Kumar to avoid listing the application before the Bench which had passed the final order, and as per design, the case got listed before the Bench which passed the order granting him bail on medical grounds.
The Bench also noted that when the case was listed on 12.01.2021, counsel for Kumar tried to get it off the cause list by approaching the registry and asking the dealing clerk to generate a report stating the case was wrongly listed, and the clerk obliged.
As per the Court, the accused-applicant did all this to avoid a particular Bench and to get it listed before the Bench which passed the order dated 18.12.2020 by cleverly drafting the application without attaching final order dated 03.12.2020.
After considering all the facts, the Court held that instead of surrendering before the Court on 31.12.2020, Kumar tried to misuse and subvert the process of the Court. Therefore, the Court imposed a cost of Rs. 50,000 on the accused-applicant(Kumar).
Case Details:-
Title: Ajay Kumar vs UOI
Case No.: Bail No. – 5037 of 2020
Date of Order:13.01.2021
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh
