New Delhi: A special court in Delhi has rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) plea seeking additional charges against former DHFL promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan in the alleged bank fraud case, observing that it cannot review its own order on charges except to correct clerical or typographical errors, news agency ANI reported on Friday. Special Judge (CBI) Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra of the Rouse Avenue District Court passed the order on October 29, while deciding the CBI's application under Section 216 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking amendment of the charges framed on July 30, 2026.

Source: ANI via DevDiscourse

The CBI had sought a charge under Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) — criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker or agent — against the Wadhawan brothers. It also sought charges under Section 467 IPC (forgery of a valuable security or will) against the brothers and co-accused S.M.N. Naqvi, criminal conspiracy charges under Section 120B read with Section 467 against the concerned accused, an omnibus conspiracy charge against all accused, and additional charges against co-accused Ajay Nawandar, besides clarification of certain observations in the earlier order.

Special Public Prosecutor Anupam S Sharrma, appearing for the CBI, argued that Section 216 CrPC empowers the court to alter or add charges at any stage before judgment is pronounced, that no prejudice would be caused to the accused because the recording of evidence had only recently commenced and only formal witnesses had been examined, and relied on the Delhi High Court's August 19 order granting the parties liberty to pursue appropriate remedies before the trial court.

Opposing the plea, advocates Nagesh Behl and Vishal Gaurav, for the Wadhawan brothers, argued that the CBI was seeking to reopen issues already examined and decided in the detailed July 30 order, had brought no new evidence on record, and that the proposed Section 467 charge had neither been included in the charge-sheet nor pressed during the arguments on framing of charges. Advocate Hemant Shah, for Nawandar, argued that Section 216 is an enabling provision to correct a genuine omission, not a remedy for a party dissatisfied with the court's order, and that under Section 362 CrPC a criminal court can correct only clerical or arithmetical errors.

Rejecting the requests, the court observed that it had specifically held in its July 30 order that the offence under Section 409 IPC was not attracted against Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan, and that there was no material or witness statement to establish the ingredients of offences under Sections 206 and 424 IPC against the brothers or Nawandar. It noted that conspiracy charges under Section 120B had already been framed against individual accused after considering the prosecution's material, and held that no party has a vested right to seek alteration of charges as a matter of right, since that power is vested exclusively in the court.

The court allowed the CBI's application only to the limited extent of correcting two typographical errors concerning Nawandar in the July 30 order: removing the words 'prima facie' that had inadvertently been included in paragraph 323, and recording in paragraph 324 that his conspiracy charge is under Section 120B read with Section 468 IPC, not Section 465 IPC as earlier mentioned. The trial will now proceed on the charges already framed. ANI also noted the Supreme Court's 2024 judgment in K. Ravi v. State of Tamil Nadu, which held that an order rejecting an application to modify charges under Section 216 CrPC is interlocutory in nature and a revision petition against it is not maintainable.

The case in brief

The prosecution case, as recorded in the Supreme Court's judgment record in CBI v. Kapil Wadhawan and Another, is that DHFL and its promoters allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat a consortium of 17 banks led by the Union Bank of India, which sanctioned loans aggregating to about Rs 42,000 crore, with an alleged wrongful loss of about Rs 34,000 crore to the lenders between January 2010 and December 2019. The allegations are contested and the matter is under trial.

Source: Supreme Court judgment record (CBI v. Kapil Wadhawan)