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Informist, Tuesday, May 5, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Bombay High Court Tuesday quashed a first information report against HDFC Bank Ltd.'s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sashidhar Jagdishan for alleged involvement in fraudulent activities concerning the financials of the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust. The trust runs the Lilavati Hospital in Bandra, Mumbai. 

 

The high court said that the complaint by Prashant Kishor Mehta, a permanent trustee and key promoter of the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust, was nothing but a counterblast to the recovery proceedings initiated by the bank against his family for default in repayment of substantial dues exceeding INR 650 million. The materials on record do not justify an investigation into the claim made by the complainant, said the court.

 

The Bandra court magistrate's order to direct registration of the first information report amounts to gross abuse of the criminal process, being founded on purely civil background and recovery proceedings that have already attained finality through orders of the debt recovery tribunal and the high court, said a bench of Justice N.R. Borkar and Justice M.S. Karnik. The allegations, even if taken at face value, do not disclose any entrustment or dishonest inducement, said the bench.

 

There is serious acrimony, distrust and strained relations to the core between the erstwhile trustees and present trustees of Lilavati Trust, said the court. It is the complainant's case that it is the pressure exerted due to these recovery proceedings that led to the unfortunate demise of his father, the court noted. For this, the complainant blames financial institutions, obviously those in charge, it said.

 

The high court said that the demise of the complainant's father was undoubtedly unfortunate, but Jagdishan couldn't be blamed for this. This impression of the complainant was personal to him but couldn't be a justifiable reason to trigger a criminal prosecution on the specious plea that a photocopy of a diary was found by the complainant containing some entries of payments made to the petitioner, said the court.

 

The first information report against Jagdishan and other officials of the bank was registered last year on an order from a magistrate's court at Bandra after a seized cash diary allegedly showed misappropriation of INR 144.20 million by some of the trustees. According to the first information report filed after an application by the trust, Jagdishan received INR 20.50 million as bribe to help a group of erstwhile trustees to retain illegal control over the trust. HDFC Bank had denied the allegations and said, "HDFC Bank's MD and CEO Mr. Sashidhar Jagdishan is being targeted by unscrupulous persons who are abusing the legal process to thwart the recovery of the long-outstanding loan due to the Bank from recalcitrant defaulters."

 

On Tuesday, shares of HDFC Bank ended 0.9% lower at INR 772.30 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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