The court after hearing the arguments and going by the facts of the case, dismissed the bail pleas of the accused brothers.
Dismissing the bail pleas of two brothers allegedly involved in the property grab case of Sector 37, Chandigarh, the Additional District and Sessions Judge in a detailed judgement said “owner of the disputed house has been treated and dealt with in such a manner that no prudent human being can dream of.”
The ADJ Poonam R Joshi, further added that, “There was no enmity between the parties and only out of greed the original owner was made to stay in various social organisations to suffer and ultimately persist had such a conspiracy constitutes excessively grave offence.”
In the matter of Saurabh Gupta, citing the judgement of the apex court, the Chandigarh court held, “In a case titled P Chidambaram versus Directorate of Enforcement of 2019, it is held by their lordships that, “Power u/s 438 CrPC, 1973 being an extraordinary remedy, has to be exercised sparingly, more so, in cases of economic offences. Economic offences stand as a different class as they affect the economic fabric of the society.”
Further citing another judgement of apex court, the Chandigarh court said, ‘In case titled as Nimmagadda Prasad Vs Central Bureau of Investigation of 2013, their lordships held that “economic offences constitute a class apart and need to be visited with a different approach in the matter of bail. The economic offence having deep rooted conspiracies and involving huge loss of public funds needs to be viewed seriously and considered as grave offences affecting the economy of the country as a whole and thereby posing serious threat to the financial health of the country”.
In the matter of Manish Gupta, citing judgement of apex court, the Chandigarh court said, ‘The authority in case titled as Md Ibrahim and others versus State of Bihar and Another of 2010 cited by learned defence counsel with due respect is not applicable to the present case at hand being based on different facts.’
The petitioner, Saurabh Gupta had pleaded that the he is bonafide purchaser of the property in question. He and his brother Manish Gupta have taken all the possible precautions while purchasing the property in question, adding they would not invest huge amount sin the property if they knew it was being sold by some fake person.
Also, if the applicant or his brother were involved in the said crime then they would not have started construction or taken a loan from HDFC Bank. Moreover, it was pointed out that Saurabh is regularly paying the loan installments without any default.
However, Manish Gupta in his bail plea had mentioned that he has been implicated in the said FIR just because he is Saurabh’s elder brother. Further, he is not witness to any of the documents and there is also no allegation of any of the offence as mentioned above against the him.
The special Public Prosecutor, Manu Kakkar, however, opposing the separate bail pleas of the accused, had contended that victim Rahul Mehta was not of very sound mind and this fact was misused by the accused persons, who prepared various documents in order to usurp Mehta’s property. He further contended that as far as petitioner is concerned, he was in active conspiracy with the other co-accused.
The court after hearing the arguments and going by the facts of the case, dismissed the bail pleas of the accused brothers.
The FIR against nine persons including Journalist Sanjeev Mahajan, liquor businessman Arvind Singla, Saurabh Gupta, his brother Manish Gupta and others was registered on February 28. The matter pertains to the illegal confinement of Rahul Mehta, owner of a house in April 2017, when the accused, along with several others, executed the plan to transfer the GPA and sell the 338 square yard property at Sector 37, Chandigarh.
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