Court to consider bail pleas of two accused today

Thiruvananthapuram: The sixth additional district sessions court adjourned the anticipatory bail applications of the accused in BSNL engineers’ cooperative society fraud to Friday for further hearing.
As per the direction of the judge K Vishnu, police submitted a case diary of the case on Thursday. Additional public prosecutor M Salahuddin pleaded before the court to dispose of the bail pleas as custodial interrogation of the accused is a must. The prosecution reminded the court that the fraud was worth over Rs 200 crore.
A collective of the people who were cheated in the fraud, named Save Forum, also pleaded before the court to make them a party in the case. The bail pleas and the plea of Save Forum will be considered on Friday before a final verdict.
Accused AR Gopinathan Nair, former president of the society, and AR Rajeev, who worked as the clerk at the society, had approached the court seeking bail last week. The prosecution told the court that the state government sees the fraud seriously as 1,225 depositors were cheated crores of rupees.
Vanchiyoor police registered a case against the accused under IPC sections 409 for criminal breach of trust and 420 for cheating. The officers told the court that the accused issued fake documents to depositors and later money was diverted for other investments, mostly in real estate.