34,926 crores DHFL Bank Fraud case: Supreme Court grants bail to Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhwan

The Supreme Court has granted bail to Kapil Wadhawan, Managing Director of M/s. Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) and his brother Dheeraj Wadhawan in connection with a case relating to amount of Rs. 34,926 crores being siphoned off by making shell companies.

CBI had investigated the matter and filed supplementary chargesheet arraying 40 individual accused persons and 70 companies, totaling to 110 accused, coupled with 736 witnesses to be examined. Court was further told that the chargesheet runs into almost four lakh pages and there are 17 trunks of documents which are not part of the chargesheet and not relied upon. In addition, in digital form and in hard disks, data runs into more than 2 TB.

A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi noted after looking to the number of witnesses and the orders passed by the Courts, that if the case is taken up on day-to-day basis, even in two to three years, the conclusion was not possible.

Considering all the facts and circumstances of the case, subject to putting the restrictions on movement of appellants out of India, the bench deemed it appropriate to release the Wadhawan brothers on bail with the following conditions – 

a. The Appellants shall be released on bail on individually furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 10,00,000/- with two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the trial Court.

b. The Appellants shall disclose their place of residence and contact number to the concerned jurisdictional trial Court as well as police station where they would stay, within one week of their release. They shall mark their presence in the jurisdictional police station once a month and after framing of charges, before the trial Court on the dates as specified;

c. The Appellants shall not leave the territorial jurisdiction of country without the prior permission of the High Court and shall surrender their passports with the concerned trial Court within 2 days of their release;

d. Any attempt by the Appellants to influence or threaten the witnesses, whether directly or indirectly, shall result in cancellation of the bail on application by the prosecution;

e. The Appellants are directed to remain present before the trial Court on dates so fixed by trial Court until exempted, and no unnecessary adjournment shall be sought by them;

f. Learned trial Court is also at liberty to impose any other conditions on them, if needed;

g. Any violation of these conditions, unless due to an exceptional or unforeseeable ground, shall be treated as valid condition for cancellation of bail.

Appeals were filed before the Supreme Court assailing the orders dated 04.08.2025 and 16.09.2025 of the High Court of Delhi rejecting the application for grant of regular bail.

Justice Ravinder Dudeja of the Delhi High Court had denied bail, in a detailed 27-page verdict, saying, “The Court cannot permit the release of a person who is prima facie the mastermind of a deep-rooted financial fraud, especially when the trial is at a nascent stage.”

The FIR, lodged by the CBI on 20 June 2022, invoked Sections 120B read with 409, 420, and 477A of the IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The case was registered against DHFL, its promoters Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wadhawan, and others for entering into a criminal conspiracy to cheat a consortium of 17 banks led by Union Bank of India.

They allegedly induced the banks to sanction loans aggregating Rs 57,242.05 crores and subsequently siphoned off and misappropriated large portions of these funds. DHFL’s books of accounts were allegedly falsified to conceal the fraud. The consortium is said to have suffered a wrongful loss of Rs 34,926.77 crores between January 2010 and December 2019.

According to the investigation, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, in conspiracy with others, diverted DHFL’s loan proceeds through forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust, and falsification of accounts. The diversion involved 87 shell companies operated in the names of employees, friends, and associates of the Wadhawan brothers.

It was further discovered that these shell companies received funds without proper documentation, while on paper, the same funds were shown as disbursed to 2,60,315 fictitious retail borrowers. A fake branch, termed ‘Bandra branch-001’, was virtually created in DHFL’s system to execute these transactions.

Kapil Wadhawan was taken into custody on 19 July 2022 and was granted default statutory bail on 3 December 2022, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court. However, the Supreme Court later cancelled his bail on 24 January 2024.

Case Title: KAPIL WADHAWAN vs. CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

Order Date: December 11, 2025

Bench: Justices Maheshwari and Bishnoi