Pune court rejects anticipatory bail plea of D S Kulkarni, wife

Real estate developer D S Kulkarni

A Pune court, presided by Special Judge J T Utpat, on Wednesday rejected the anticipatory bail application of real estate developer Deepak Sakharam alias D S Kulkarni (68), director of the DSK Group, and his wife Hemanti (58), who had been booked on charges of cheating their depositors.

The couple was booked after over 1,350 depositors filed complaints against Kulkarni with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch of Pune City Police. Kulkarni and his wife have been booked under sections 406, 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Maharashtra Protection Of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act. Later, police also invoked sections 409, 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) and sections of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act in the case.

Kulkarni had moved court seeking anticipatory bail, and had assured the court that he would refund the depositors’ money by March 2018. During the proceedings on Wednesday, Kulkarni’s lawyer Shrikant Shivade, while addressing the issues plaguing DSK Group, told the court that a joint project between the group and an Israeli firm had been cancelled. The cancellation had been a major setback for the group, Shivade told the court.

Shivade also submitted that “political leaders” were behind the “instigation of depositors” to file complaints against Kulkarni, as they wanted “to grab the 300-acre land of DSK Group”.

Shivade also submitted that the prosecution agency had invoked Section 4 of the MPID Act, “only with a view that property worth Rs 3,500 crore belonging to DSK Group shall be sold at a meagre amount to political land sharks”. He argued that the prosecution had not given any evidence about how it had calculated the price of the 300-acre land, belonging to DSK Group, only at Rs 1,100 crore, which, in his opinion, was worth Rs 3,500 crore. Shivade also submitted that the DSK Group would repay the amount due to its depositors by March 2018.

Meanwhile, the prosecution lawyer told the court that until now, nearly 1,400 depositors had come forward with their complaints. According to the prosecution, the amount to be paid by the DSK Group to its investors was about Rs 622 crore and the group had not yet paid back deposits, which had completed the maturity period, to 376 investors . The prosecution also said that in 2017, as many as 66 cases under the Negotiable Instruments Act have been filed against the DSK Group in a Shivajinagar court.