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A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar has questioned the Centre as to why Priyanka Modi, the petitioner who is alleged to be involved in siphoning-off of funds and is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Investigation Officer (SFIO) has been in custody since July 2019.

Modi approached the top court by way of an SLP after her bail application was rejected by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in December last year.

The petitioner is one of the Directors of Adarsh Credit Co-operative Society Limited (ACCSL) which has been revealed to be the fund mobilization arm of Adarsh Group of Companies and LLPs (AGC&L) and the said Group comprises of 126 Companies, managed and controlled by the petitioner's father, Mukesh Modi, and his family members including her. 

Modi was found to be involved in siphoning-off the funds of ACCSL as she was one of the Directors of several companies of AGC&L which had secured the loans from ACCSL fraudulently and illegally, by way of falsification of their financials whereas only the members of ACCSL were eligible to secure such loans.

Sr. Adv. Vikram Chaudhri appearing for the petitioner told Court that his client had been in custody since July 2019 and should be granted the relief of bail.

To this, the bench asked as to why she was in custody for so long.

Chaudhri replied by saying that many of the witnesses had not been examined till now and so she was not being granted bail.

The Court then enquired ASG KM Nataraj as to the punishment, if Modi was found to be guilty of the offence alleged against her.

ASG Kamaraj informed the Court that a punishment of upto 10 years could be imposed. He added that Modi was accused of siphoning-off crores of rupees.

The Bench said, "The punishment is ten years... she has already been in custody for three years now."

While observing so, the Court directed ASG Kamaraj to obtain instructions from the concerned authorities before appearing on the next date.

Cause Title: Priyanka Modi vs SFIO