‘Mark presence with police via video call from Dubai’

Vadodara: At 11 am on every Monday and Thursday for the next year, the sub-inspector of Waghodiya police station will remain glued to his mobile phone expecting an important WhatsApp call.
It will not be a call from the senior officials of the police department, but from an accused of a cheating case. Strange, it may sound but the accused, a realtor from Anand, has been ordered to mark his presence before police through online means as the court allowed him to travel to Dubai for business purposes for one year.
The accused Sanjay Shah, who is accused of cheating several people in a housing scheme in Waghodiya, was allowed conditional bail in February. He was asked to deposit his passport with the court, mark his presence every Monday and Thursday at Waghodiya police station and not leave India.
But last month, Shah approached the court again to modify his bail conditions as he planned to travel to Dubai for business purpose.
He told the court that he holds license in Dubai to carry out commercial business there so his condition of depositing passport with court and not travelling outside India be deleted or modified for a period of five years.
The court of additional sessions judge A J Kanani allowed his application and modified the condition for a period of one year against a deposit of Rs 1 lakh before the trial court. Shah was, however, not allowed to not mark his police presence so the court asked him to make WhatsApp call on Monday and Thursday at 11 am to the sub-inspector and also share his Google location with the cop. The sub-inspector has also been asked to report the court about this exercise at the end of every month until Shah returns to India and deposits his passport back.
Shah has also been asked to keep his mobile phone switched on all the time and also share landline numbers and two mobile phone numbers of his Dubai office manager or office staff to the cop and court before travelling to Dubai. The sub-inspector has been asked to provide a copy of the order to the Indian Embassy in Dubai for their information.