Bombay high court advances to today order on DSK, wife’s pre-arrest bail plea

PUNE: The Bombay high court on Thursday advanced its much-anticipated final order on the anticipatory bail application of prominent developer D S Kulkarni and his wife Hemanti in a cheating case to Friday instead of the earlier February 22.
Justice Sadhana Jadhav of the HC passed an order to this effect after additional public prosecutor Veera Shinde mentioned that the property against which a demand draft of Rs 12 crore was being presented by Kulkarni has been mortgaged and is subject to encumbrances.Shinde submitted that it would not be appropriate to extend the time for passing orders as the investigation by the Pune police’s ecnomomic offences wing (EOW) has shown that “once again the applicant has attempted to mislead the court.”
On instructions from EOW officer Mahadev Kumbhar, Shinde submitted that “the property (of Kulkarni) which was proposed to be purchased by Buldhana Urban Cooperative Credit Society Limited is reserved for public amenities and is mortgaged with Bank of Maharashtra.”
The bench said, “This court, after hearing the plight of senior citizens, was only interested in recovering the amount but it appears that the applicants herein are dodging the court by giving different proposals. In fact, the proposal given by Mr Prabhune (money transfer from a Singapore bank) has fallen and hence the matter is posted for orders on February 16.”
According to an HC order by Justice A S Gadkari on December 4, 2017, Kulkarni was required to deposit Rs 50 crore with the HC registry by December 19, 2017, to show his bona fide vis-a-vis repayment of depositors’ money. The order then specified in unequivocal terms that the interim protection granted to the couple would stand vacated if the money was not deposited with the registry. The protection did lapse but Kulkarni moved the Supreme Court and secured a month-long relief till January 22 this year.
On January 22, the developer’s lawyer informed the HC that two transactions of $40 lakh each (totally equivalent to Rs 51 crore) have been initiated by an overseas client from a bank in Singapore into the account of a company in which Kulkarni is a director. However, on January 25, the court was informed that the amount had not been deposited due to non-clearance by the Reserve Bank of India considering that it was a foreign fund transfer.
The developer then agreed that he shall not come in the way of the prosecution/EOW putting some of his properties to auction, following which his interim protection was extended till February 5. Again, at the next hearing, the issue before the court was one of finding properties free of encumbrances and delay in attachment of properties under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act. Kulkarni and his wife were told to report to the investigating officer for questioning from February 7 to 11.
On February 13, the couple appeared before the court and a photocopy of a demand draft of Rs 12 crore was placed on record, stating that it was part of a purchase deal being struck with the Buldhana credit society. The prosecution had submitted that the investigating agency would give a letter to the property registering authority relating to the mentioned property. The counsel for Buldana credit society told the court that its board of directors will have to pass a resolution relating to the proposal. This did not appear to be forthcoming as prosecutor Shinde pointed out to the court on Thursday.