The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday dismissed an anticipatory bail application filed by a former bank manager in a case booked against him on the charge of swindling Rs. 1.31 crore by sanctioning bogus loans to self-help group members. Justice P.N. Prakash dismissed the application filed by Mahendran, former manager of Sayalkudi branch of Union Bank of India, on the ground that the nature of allegations levelled against him were very serious and the amount of money involved in the case was also huge.
Though the petitioner accused his successor in the bank branch of having lodged the complaint with ulterior motives and without obtaining the permission of his superiors, the judge said the Code of Criminal Procedure did not make such permission a sine qua non for setting the law in motion.
The judge said a communication sent by the bank’s Regional Office to the complainant, Sesha Mari Kumaran, on February 18 sought his explanation only for not keeping the matter in wraps and allowing the media to get a wind of it thereby causing loss of reputation to the bank’s name.
Complaint
“By lodging such a complaint, even without the permission of the higher-ups, the defacto complainant would have at the most violated some departmental rules, but that cannot in any way make the FIR illegal,” the judge added.
