Court to hear anticipatory bail application of Shah tomorrow

Mumbai, May 27 (UNI) A local court will decide tomorrow on the anticipatory bail application (ABA) moved by Chandresh Shah - an estate agent who allegedly played a middleman's role in the Slum Rehabilitaion Authority (SRA) Project scheme at Wadala in Central Mumbai, in which Haseena Parkar, sister of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, is also involved.

City Civil and Sessions Court Principal Judge Ashok Bhangle had granted an interim relief to Shah on May 17 till tomorrow, with a directive to appear before the investigating agency for recording of his statement and then be present in the court for final hearing on the application.

Meanwhile, on May 24, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate V K Sharma granted bail to Ms Parkar on payment of Rs 25,000.

Four persons - Krishanmilan Shukla, Sandeep Shukla, Shamim Qureshi and Salim Sayyed -- were arrested. Krishanmilan and Sandeep are Ms Parkar's bodyguards, while the latter two are her drivers.

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 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 a tout named Chandresh Shah 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, who needed Rs two crore for his SRA projects in Antop hill, Nirmal Nagar and Wadala, was introduced to Avlani by Shah.

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 Ms Parkar and made her a guarantor for the money. However, the SRA project failed to materialise and therefore, 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.

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