Supreme Court Makes Absolute Interim Protection To Deepak Garg In Rs 1596 Crore SRS Fraud Case
Kirit Singhania
27 Feb 2026 7:05 PM IST
The Supreme Court on Thursday made absolute the interim protection it had earlier granted to Deepak Garg, a Director of SRS Finance Ltd and SRS Shining Ornaments Ltd, during the pendency of his special leave petitions challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court's refusal of anticipatory bail in the alleged Rs 1,596 crore SRS Group financial fraud case.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said, “Taking into consideration the facts and circumstances of the case and upon hearing the learned counsel for the parties, we consider appropriate to make the aforesaid order(s) absolute. We direct the Trial Court to expedite the hearing of the trial.”
The Court disposed of the batch of special leave petitions and directed both the prosecution and defence to extend full cooperation for expeditious completion of trial.
The High Court had, on March 4, 2024, declined anticipatory bail to Garg in proceedings arising out of a Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) probe ordered by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on August 1, 2018 under Section 212 of the Companies Act. The investigation concerns the affairs of SRS Limited and its group entities.
According to the SFIO complaint, the SRS Group and its associated entities are alleged to have siphoned and diverted public funds, falsified financial statements and concealed related party transactions to secure loans from banks and financial institutions. The High Court recorded that the outstanding liability of the group companies was approximately Rs 1,596 crore.
Garg was summoned on August 16, 2021. He was accused of signing financial statements for the financial years 2015-16 and 2016-17 that allegedly omitted material particulars, including related party disclosures, thereby enabling the companies to obtain credit facilities.
While rejecting his anticipatory bail plea, the High Court held that the stringent “twin conditions” under Section 212(6) of the Companies Act applied even to anticipatory bail and found that there were no reasonable grounds to believe that Garg was not guilty of the alleged offences.
During the pendency of the special leave petitions, the Supreme Court had granted Garg interim protection from arrest on multiple dates. On Thursday, the Court made that interim protection absolute and directed the trial court to expedite the proceedings.
With the petitions disposed of, the interim protection granted by the Supreme Court will continue, subject to the expeditious conduct of the trial.
For Petitioners: Advocates Vivek Jain, AOR; Suchitra Kumbhat; Sadiq Noor; Rohit H Nair; Benila Bm; Anurag Ojha, AOR; Vipul Kumar; Kanishk Arora; Dipak Raj; Aayushman Bhatt.
For Respondents: Additional Solicitors General S D Sanjay and Davinder Pal Singh; Advocates Shubham Prakash Mishra; Vaibhav Drivedi; Parthvi Ahuja; Abhishek Makarand Karnik; Adarsh Kumar Pandey; Divakar Mishra; Disha Thakkar; Munisha Anand; Ashok Kumar; Arun Kumar Yadav; Akanksha Raj; Shubh Sharma; Raj Bahadur Yadav, AOR; Sudarshan Lamba, AOR.