Cops’ plea for Kalra’s custody junked
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday rejected a Delhi Police plea seeking five more days of custodial interrogation of businessman Navneet Kalra, and instead sent him to 14 days in judicial custody.
Kalra, who has been charged with hoarding oxygen concentrators and selling them at inflated prices, was arrested on Sunday evening from a Gurugram farmhouse. The Delhi Police recovered 524 oxygen concentrators from three restaurants – Khan Chacha, Town Hall and Nege & Ju – owned by Kalra and from the office of Matrix Cellular between May 5 and May 7.
He was sent to three days in police custody by a court on
Monday.
Metropolitan magistrate Akanksha Garg said that even if the accused is remanded to judicial custody or released on bail, there is no impediment before the investigating agency to confront or interrogate the accused.
The court also rejected the police contention that Kalra’s custody was required for recovering the mirror images of the recovered mobile phone, saying, “I do not find any force in it”.
The magistrate said the fact that replies of various banks with regard to financial transactions were still awaited cannot be a ground to deny the accused his “valuable right”.
Public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava told the court, “Almost 516 transactions were made and 23 banks were involved and he has to be confronted with this. These bank accounts are voluminous.”
Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, representing Kalra, requested the court to not grant further custody of the businessman to the police, as all the recoveries have been made and his presence is not required. He said that all transactions were routed through a single bank account and that Kalra was not required to verify the same.
Advocate Vineet Malhotra, representing Kalra, also showed the Instagram page of actor Salman Khan, contending that the concentrators he was distributing were similar to the ones being sold by Kalra. The public prosecutor responded that Khan was donating and not doing business with them.
On May 5, a case was registered against Kalra under Section 420 (cheating), 188 (disobedience to order promulgated by public servant), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, Essential Commodities Act and Epidemic Diseases Act.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also registered a money laundering case against Kalra.
Five persons, including the manager of Nege & Ju restaurant, chief executive officer (CEO) and three senior officers of Matrix Cellular, were also arrested in the case. However, all five were later released on bail with the court observing that it was unable to understand the offence they had committed as the government did not regulate the prices of the devices.