Kerala HC rejects bail plea of key accused Ananda Kumar in CSR fund case
The bench was hearing the CSR fund case wherein the accused allegedly cheated dozens of people by promising them two-wheelers, sewing machines at half the price
The Kerala high court on Wednesday refused to release KN Ananda Kumar, managing trustee of the National NGO’s Confederation, on bail in connection with the case of alleged cheating and fraud of dozens of people who were promised two-wheelers, sewing machines at half the price.
Justice PV Kunhikrishnan passed the order on the petition filed by Kumar who was taken into custody by the Crime Branch of the Kerala police on March 11. During the hearing, the counsel for 70-year-old Kumar requested bail due to some health issues he was facing. However, the court said that bail would be granted only if adequate treatment facilities were not available in jail.
The HC also directed the public prosecutor to file a medical report on Kumar’s condition. “The public prosecutor submitted that the petitioner is now in jail and the medical facilities are available in the jail and necessary follow-up treatment is given to the petitioner. If that is the case, the petitioner is not entitled to bail based on the first proviso to section 480(1) of BNS,” the court noted.
Kumar, along with key accused and coordinator of the confederation Anandu Krishnan, are accused of duping hundreds of people, who were falsely promised two-wheelers and household appliances at half the price by citing “CSR fund” of big private firms.
According to the allegations against Krishnan and Kumar, they set up seed societies across 14 districts of the state and lured people, mostly women, into believing that they can get two-wheelers and household appliances, including laptops, at half the price as the rest of the money would come from CSR funds of large private firms. The preliminary police probe found that while a section of the people got the products as promised, a large majority of them were cheated in the name of “non-existent” CSR funds.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in March that the accused collected over ₹281 crore from over 49,000 people promising them two-wheelers at half the price but fulfilled the promise to only one-third of them.
The CM stated that till March 12, 1,343 FIRs have been lodged in various police stations across the state of which 665 cases have been transferred to the crime branch division.
“As per the findings from the 386 cases probed so far, the accused collected ₹281.43 crore from 49,386 people after promising them scooters at half the price. However, only 16,438 of them got the scooters, leaving the remaining cheated,” Vijayan added.
