Lucknow, Jul 17 (PTI) The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has granted bail to an ex-MD of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited in a multi-crore GPF scam.

The court allowed the bail, considering Ayodhya Prasad Mishra's age, poor health and the fact that he has been in the jail for the past two years and the CBI failed to trace the trail of the money involved in the case.

Earlier, the HC had denied him bail in April last year. The Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh granted him bail on Friday.

The Supreme Court had also rejected his bail plea but had permitted him to file a new application before the HC, pleading his old age and poor health.

In its order, the court said the role of Mishra in the crime is that he granted permission to invest money in PNB Housing, LIC Housing and DHLF while co–accused Abhinav Gupta is said to be kingpin of the case but he has already been granted bail by the Supreme Court.

Earlier, when the Bench asked CBI lawyer Anurag Singh, he said the investigating agency is likely to complete the probe in the case by September 2021.

The case is related to crores of rupees of the provident fund of thousands of employees of the UPPCL being withdrawn from the bank and invested in a scam-hit company.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had first constituted an SIT to investigate the matter and later recommended a CBI probe.

The CBI started the investigation by registering a case in March 2020.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)