The economic offences are more serious than usual crime, directed against a person, as they affect the country and put a question mark on its governance, the Delhi High Court said on Monday while dismissing the bail plea of five corporate honchos in the 2G case.

"The offences against body or property generally affect one or a few victims but the economic offences involving exploitation of public offices have a potential to impact the society at large," Justice Ajit Bharihoke said. "This is an offence of highest magnitude which not only impacts the society at large but also puts a question mark on the governance in the country, which can adversely affect the economy of the country." the court said.

The remarks were made by the court while denying bail to Unitech group MD Sanjay Chandra, Reliance ADA Group MD Gautam Doshi, group president Surendra Pipara, senior Vice-president Hari Nair and Swan Telecom co-promoter Vinod Goenka. "When a loss is caused to the state exchequer, every citizen suffers because the money could have been used for the development of the country or for public welfare measures like food, health, education etc," the court said.

It did not accept the arguments of senior advocate Ram Jethmalani that allegations against corporate leaders were of civil nature and the alleged offence cannot be termed as a grave offence. The gravity of an offence is also measured by its impact on the society and economic offenes are more serious, it said. "To my mind, the quantum of sentence alone cannot be yardstick for measuring the gravity of an offence. Another parameter to measure the gravity of an offence is the impact of the offence on the society", the judge said.

He said there is a prima facie case against the five corporate accused of involvement in criminal conspiracy which caused huge loss to publice exchequer. "The petitioners have been shown to be prima facie involved in a criminal conspiracy resulting in a financial loss to the tune of around Rs 30,000 crores and corresponding gains to their companies running into thousands of crores of rupees," the court said. "In my view, the gravity of the offence, is itself sufficient to deny bail to the petitioner," the judge said.