SC nixes plea on clubbing of FIRs in different states against those duping investors

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court ruled that FIRs lodged against people for duping investors in different states cannot be clubbed into one FIR for the convenience of the accused as it would entail long-distance travel for witnesses and complainants during trial proceedings.

Dealing with a plea of Pavan Kumar Odela-run Falcon Capital Ventures for clubbing of existing and future FIRs in various states against him and his other family members for allegedly duping thousands of investors, a bench of CJI B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said the “prayers for clubbing FIRs from various states and also regarding future FIRs are overambitious and outright illegal... The prayer regarding future FIRs is one which cannot be granted by any court of law”. SC agreed to club multiple FIRs lodged against accused in Telangana & Maharashtra, but said single FIRs lodged against them in Karnataka, Bengal, Delhi and Andhra would be probed separately.

SC said clubbing FIRs in one state is different from clubbing FIRs lodged in different states on complaints of different investors.

However, it granted interim bail for six months to the accused on the ground that they have spent months in jail. It restrained execution of pending arrest warrants against the accused.