Hearing in Chandresh Shah case adjourned till tomorrow

Mumbai, May 16 (UNI) The City Civil and Sessions court today adjourned the anticipatory bail application (ABA) of estate agent Chandresh Shah in the Wadala Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scam case till tomorrow.

Principal Judge Ashok Bhangale said the decision regarding the physical presence of Shah during the final hearing on ABA would also be decided tomorrow.

Objecting to the granting of ABA to Shah, Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian said, as per legal procedure, the applicant should remain present in the court at the time of hearing his application.

She said since Shah was released on bail in another anti-corruption case last month, he has been untraceable.

Earlier, the applicant had given an undertaking to the police that after he was released on bail in the anti-corruption case, he would remain present in the court for the SRA hearing.

Defence advocate Abad Ponda, on the other hand, argued that it was not necessary for the applicant to remain present in the court under section 438 of Crpc.

It may be recalled that Vinod Pranlal Avlani, a real estate developer and builder, in a complaint to the crime branch in December last year, had accused eight persons including, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's sister Haseena Parkar and Sandeep Shukla of cheating him of Rs 30 lakhs after the failure of a SRA project.

Later, the ACB on April 12, arrested a tout named Chandresh while accepting a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh. Chandresh claimed he was working at the behest of a senior Crime Branch official.

This led the ACB to raid the Crime Branch's Unit-I office. The ACB had earlier recorded several conversations between Shukla, Chandresh and one Raju, who too claimed to be a tout of the Crime Branch's Unit-I.

Shukla needed two crore rupees for his SRA projects in Antop hill, Nirmal Nagar and Wadala and was introduced to Avlani by Chandresh.

Avlani agreed to pay Shukla two crore rupees in return for a 51 per cent partnership in the projects.

Avlani paid Shukla Rs 30 lakh in the presence of Parker and made her a guarrantor for the money. However, the SRA project failed to materialise and Avlani demanded his Rs 30 lakh back.

When Avlani lodged a complaint with the crime branch, Shukla ironically approached the ACB with a complaint that officers of Crime Branch Unit-I were seeking favours from him in the case.

UNI