Court defers Shah's ABA hearing till tomorroW

Mumbai, May 17 (UNI) A lower court today deferred hearing till tomorrow, in the Anticipatory Bail Application (ABA) of Chandresh Shah, an estate agent, involved in the Wadala Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scam case with Haseena Parkar, the absconding sister of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

After completion of the arguments by both sides at the fag end of day's proceedings, City Civil and Sessions Court Principal Judge Ashok Bhangle reserved the order, saying it would be pronounced tomorrow.

Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian told the court that Chandresh's brother had signed on a verification form before court registrar on behalf of him and had also given an undertaking on Chandresh's behalf that after his release on bail in anti-corruption case, he would come for verification. But, Chandresh failed to do so till date and police are searching for him.

Thereafter, Judge Bhangale asked defence advocate Abad Ponda the whereabouts of his applicant. To which, he replied ''his client is very much here. He can produce him in the court right now.'' Upon that, the court directed Mr Ponda to produce Chandresh within five-ten minutes. Chandresh appeared before the court. Then argument on ABA was commenced.

According to the case made out by prosecution, 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, Haseena Parkar and Sandeep Shukla of cheating him of Rs 30 lakh after the failure of the SRA project.

On April 12, the ACB arrested Chandresh while accepting a bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh. He claimed that 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 Unit-I.

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

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

Avlani paid Shukla Rs 30 lakh in the presence of Parkar and made her a guarantor for the money. However, the SRA project failed to materialise. Therefore, he demanded the 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