37-BA-4399-25.doc rsk IN IN THE THE HIGH HIGH COURT COURT OF OF JUDICATURE JUDICATURE AT AT BOMBAY BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION BAIL APPLICATION NO.4399 OF 2025 Yogesh Popat Navale .. Applicant Versus The State of Maharashtra & Anr. .. Respondents ....................  Mr. Nitin Gaware Patil a/w. Mr. Harsh Rathod and Mr. Prithviraj Mundwadkar for Applicant.  Mr. Radhikesh V. Uttarwar a/w. Ms. Pooja R. Thakur and Ms. Pradnya C. Solanki for Original Complainant.  Ms. Anuja S. Gotad, APP for Respondent-State.  Mr. Kashinath Jadhav , PSI, Koregaon Park Police Station, Pune. ................... CORAM : MILIND N. JADHAV, J. DATE : AUGUST 27, 2026 P.C. : 1. Heard Mr. Nitin Gaware Patil for the Applicant, Mr. Radhikesh V. Uttarwar for original complainant, Ms. Anuja Gotad, APP for Respondent-State. 2. The applicant before me is incarcerated in jail since 25 April 2025. The date of registration of FIR is 20 January 2025. The FIR is filed by the Director of the Company called Jenesis Event Management Company. The date of offence stated in the FIR is 20 February 2014 to 20 January 2025. The charges invoked against the applicant are under Sections 316(2), 316(4), 318(1), 318(2), 318(4), 336(2), 238, 340(2) and 3(5) of BNS. Essentially, the applicant is arrested for 1 of 9 RAJESHWARI SUBODH KARVE Digitally signed by RAJESHWARI SUBODH KARVE Date: 2026.08.29 18:23:40 +0530 37-BA-4399-25.doc cheating and criminal breach of trust . According to the prosecution case, applicant is an Accountant by profession and was employed to look after day-to-day affairs of Jenesis Event Management Company. In view of the trust reposed in him by the complainant, the applicant has eroded that trust over a period of more than 9 years, he has systematically siphoned and diverted a humongous amount of Rs. 8.63 crore by transferring the company funds into various accounts including his own separate accounts maintained in other banks and thereafter using the said money to invest in properties, share trading and buying luxury cars and by showing wrong transfers in the books of the Company. 3. The case of the prosecution also hints at the applicant having formed a Company called Pune Solar Energy Pvt Ltd along with his wife with the said diverted money belonging to the complainant company. The modus operandi of the applicant over a period of 9 years is duly reflected in the exhaustive material which is placed before me. It is seen that the applicant has systematically diverted the money belonging to the complainant company in view of the applicant being the sole repository of the password and OTP on behalf of the complainant’s company and he has betrayed the trust of his employer and transferred humongous amounts not running in to thousands and lakhs of rupees but crores of rupees systematically over a period of time. Since the account of the complainant’s company was a very big 2 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc account concerned with event management, the applicant took undue advantage of the company’s operations by inserting wrongful entries in the account books and siphoned off the said amounts into his own personal accounts. The first information report at page no.26 onwards prima facie shows the modus operandi of the applicant and is prima facie backed by substantial evidence. The company’s auditor Mr. Vikrant Pacharne persuaded the applicant in 2024 to give the details of the bank accounts because he found out that there was something sinister happening therein and the account entries were not matching at all. The applicant kept on delaying the aforesaid issue and did not give any details to the concerned auditor. The auditor along with another partner of the company thereafter took a search of the accounts of the company held in various private banks and obtained bank statements and found out that the applicant had systematically camouflaged and transferred substantial amounts at various intervals into multiple accounts under the name “CBSE Tax Account” so that the said account entries would not be detected by the complainant company or its auditor. All along the company and the auditor believed that these were amounts which were paid to the tax department towards company’s liability but the applicant behaved in such a surreptitious manner that all this came to light only when the auditor and another partner of the company unearthed the modus operandi of the applicant after the Company’s accounts did not add up at all. 3 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc 4. The second charge against the applicant is that in order to overcome his dubious actions of siphoning off and diverting the company’s money, the applicant prepared false account statements and kept them in the company’s record. The charge against him is that he has used the complainant’s money for repairing a new house in his village, has invested the money in “Satta” in the share market and has transferred the amounts to his wife’s account and his relative’s account including his mother’s account and purchased luxury cars. 5. In view of the modus operandi of the applicant, prima facie I am not inclined to consider the case of the applicant. Mr. Gaware Patil has argued the matter on behalf of the applicant to the extent that the applicant is in incarceration for 1 year 4 months and it should be treated as long incarceration, as nothing further is required to be interrogated or discovered from the applicant and therefore the applicant deserves to be enlarged on bail on the ground of long incarceration itself. In support of his submissions, Mr. Gaware-Patil has referred to a factual aspect and a legal aspect. 6. On the factual aspect, Mr. Gaware-Patil has placed before me an affidavit in support of assets disclosure and undertaking given by the wife of the applicant. What is stated in the affidavit is that there are 4 properties which are already attached by the prosecution whose total approximate market value according to the deponent of the affidavit is approximately Rs. 2 crores. This in itself would be doubtful 4 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc because there is no supporting material regarding valuation. 7. Mr. Gaware Patil in his usual fairness informs the Court that all those properties are now encumbered with an entry that they have been attached in the present proceedings. However, there is no other material save and except the statement in the affidavit that the value of the properties is approximately Rs. 2 crores. Even assuming for the sake of argument that the value is 2 crores, still I would not like to give any benefit of such disclosure to the applicant, since this is not a disclosure made by the deponent of the affidavit to show bonafides. Only properties at serial numbers 2 and 3 are attached by the prosecution. Insofar as properties at serial number 1 and 4 in the affidavit are concerned, primarily their value is a mere Rs.75 lakhs even according to the deponent and therefore they are of virtually negligible value. 8. In paragraph 8, in order to show bona fides, the deponent of the affidavit has made an averment that she and the applicant will jointly undertake to deposit a total sum of Rs. 50 lakhs within a period of 3 months from today, if the bail application is granted and allowed. The statement made in paragraph no. 8 is prima facie, on the face of record, unqualified. Because when a pointed question is asked to Mr. Gaware-Patil as to how these monies will be raised, he maintains a stoic silence. He submits that he has no instructions with regard to the same. Neither does the affidavit clarify the same. When a humongous 5 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc amount of Rs. 50 lakhs is attempted to be raised within a period of 3 months, it prima facie shows that the monies are available but nothing is disclosed as to how the said monies will be raised. The affidavit which is filed by the deponent, wife of the applicant does not inspire any confidence of this Court at all. 9. Next Mr. Gaware-Patil would argue on the legal submission that incarceration of the applicant for 1 year and 4 months is in itself long incarceration and the applicant, if released on bail shall make every attempt to deposit the amount. The said statement also does not inspire any confidence of this Court. He refers to a decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Arvind Dham versus Directorate of Enforcement1 and draws my attention to paragraph Nos.15 to 18 thereof and argue on the principles of applicability of Article 21 of the Constitution of India to the facts of the applicant’s case and submit that this is an economic offence and since property worth Rs.2 crores has been attached, substantial compliance has been shown by the applicant and the applicant is therefore entitled to be enlarged on bail. 10. He would draw a parallel with the cited case insofar as the applicant’s case is concerned, which I prima facie refuse to accept. The economic offence for which the applicant is indicted and arrested in the present case is such that he has eroded the trust of the company which gave him employment over a period of more than 8 to 9 years in 1 S.L.P. (Cri) No.15478 of 2025 , dated 6 January 2026, 6 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc a very systematic and planned manner. If I am required to accept the submission made by Mr. Gaware-Patil that on showing substantial compliance, and the applicant’s properties worth approximately to Rs.2 crores have been disclosed and attached, the applicant deserves to be enlarged on bail, in my opinion, this will give a wrong signal to the society at large because this Court day in and day out decides such kind of applications for grant of bail. I am not inclined to consider the aforesaid submission on long incarceration as a matter of right as argued by Mr. Gaware-Patil 11. Another submission, rather legal submission advanced by Mr. Gaware Patil is that even if the applicant is ultimately punished and convicted, he will have to undergo sentence of 7 years and therefore, he having remained incarcerated for 1 year 4 months should be considered as a substantial period of ignominy of the applicant for the purpose of grant of bail to the applicant. Such a submission made appears to be very fancy across the Bar, but it would in my opinion serve as a wrong precedent if allowed, especially in the case where the applicant has been involved in a deep conspiracy over a substantial period of nine years of duping his own employer. Moreover, it is seen that when the applicant was required to disclose and produce the details, but the applicant did not cooperate at all with the auditor of the company and it is only thereafter that it was discovered by the company that the applicant had siphoned off and diverted substantial 7 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc amounts. The criminal intent of applicant was clear. 12. The affidavit filed by the wife of the applicant is a bare affidavit and the approximate value stated by the deponent also is unbelievable, since there is no material in the affidavit filed to even consider the statements in the affidavit. 13. For all the aforesaid reasons, the facet of long incarceration of 1 year 4 months in my opinion cannot be made applicable to the applicant’s case, as a matter of right as argued by Mr. Gaware Patil since the said facet though may have been invoked on the grounds of application of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India, it will have to be exercised in a manner appropriate with the facts and circumstances of a particular case. 14. The facts and circumstances which are alluded to hereinabove, in my opinion, do not entitle the applicant to even argue the facet of long incarceration of 1 year 4 months in view of the sinister facts which have in fact been admitted by the applicant during the course of submissions. In that view of the matter, the application for enlargement on bail is dismissed. 15. I have also heard Mr. Uttarwar, learned advocate for the complainant. He has also assisted me in going through the record of the case to pursuade the Court to consider the ignominy of the complainant and whose faith was eroded by the applicant by siphoning of humongous amounts over a substantial period of nine 8 of 9 37-BA-4399-25.doc years. 16. Bail Application is dismissed. rsk [ MILIND N. JADHAV, J. ] 9 of 9