A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday quashed a first information report against HDFC Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sashidhar Jagdishan, holding that the complaint against him was a retaliatory strike against legitimate bank recovery proceedings and amounted to "a personal vendetta writ large on the face of proceedings for recovery."
The bench of Justices MS Karnik and NR Borkar also quashed related FIRs registered against Phoenix ARC Private Limited and its directors.
The FIR, registered on May 31, 2025 at Bandra Police Station, alleged criminal breach of trust and cheating against Jagdishan. The complaint was filed by Prashant Kishore Mehta, acting as trustee on behalf of the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust, before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Bandra. Mehta alleged that Jagdishan had acted in collusion with former trustees of the Lilavati Trust and had received a cash payment of approximately Rs 2.05 crore, purportedly evidenced by entries in a photocopied cash diary discovered after new trustees assumed control of the Trust in late 2023.
The High Court found that the complaint failed to disclose the essential legal ingredients required to sustain either charge. For criminal breach of trust to be made out, the court noted, there must be an element of entrustment; for cheating, there must be dishonest inducement. The bench found neither present on the face of the complaint.
The court was equally critical of the magistrate's order dated May 29, 2025, which had directed registration of the FIR. It held that the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure — confers no mechanical right to seek FIR registration where the underlying allegations have already been examined and rejected by competent forums. The magistrate, the bench held, had failed to appreciate the binding effect of prior judicial orders and the bar against multiplicity of proceedings on identical facts.
The ruling brings to a close a protracted legal battle that had traversed multiple forums, including repeated rounds before the Supreme Court.
