HC asks EOW director to appear before it on Oct 22

PRAYAGRAJ : The Allahabad high court asked the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) director to appear before it on October 22 – the next date of hearing in the Shine City multi-crore fraud case.

The court exempted UP DGP from personal presence, saying that since the matter had been sent to the director, EOW, therefore the presence of DGP was exempted.

On January 19, this court had passed a detailed order showing the default of UP Police and EOW with regard to the FIRs registered in 2019 onwards involving 1,647 investors. The total amount involved in those

FIRs was Rs 237 crore for which 284 FIRs were registered.

During the court proceedings, when it was informed that two main accused were out of the country and the passport of one accused had been cancelled by the ministry of external affairs, the court said, “We fail to understand why the request for cancellation of passport was not made immediately when 284 FIRs were registered against the accused and why the ministry of external affairs cancelled only one passport, out of two, while requests were sent by the police simultaneously. In any case, we find that despite cancellation of passport, the information to the embassy of foreign country, where the accused are residing, has not been given so as to deport them. It is also that one accused, who is represented through the counsel in this proceeding and is available in India, has not yet been arrested.”

The court intended to make serious observation about the working of the UP Police and EOW. However, on the request of additional advocate general Manish Goyal, who is representing the state government, the court adjourned the matter for two weeks to see further efforts of the police/EOW to arrest the two main accused apart from others against whom arrest warrants had been issued.

Hearing a writ petition filed by one Shriram Ram, a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Piyush Agrawal directed that the respondents UP government and others would be expected to send a copy of this order to the ministry of external affairs to know about the proceedings and the order passed therein. It was alleged in the PIL that the accused persons of Shine City Group cheated and defrauded more than 10 lakh UP investors of over Rs 60,000 crore and more than 2,500 FIRs were lodged against them and their companies in the conglomerate.