Gujarat HC grants bail to Afroz Fatta in hawala case

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday granted bail to Surat-based alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta in connection with a cheating case registered by Surat Detection of Crime Branch. However, Fatta will remain in jail in the money laundering case registered by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in which he is accused of remitting over Rs 5,000 crore abroad through his hawala channel.

The case, registered by DCB, is related to an FIR lodged by the branch manager of ICICI Bank in which it was alleged that Fatta and his co-accused while hatching a conspiracy set up several bogus companies and opened bank accounts on forged documents. “After opening the accounts between December, 2013 and February 2014, 17 fake bills of entries were produced in the bank and remitted a total of Rs 104,60,99,082 to Dubai and Hong Kong,” the complaint alleges.

Fatta’s lawyer P M Thakkar said that the bail application was moved on the ground of parity with his co-accused who were granted bail. His earlier petition was rejected by a Surat court that noted, “This is the offence adversely affecting the economy of the country. Nowadays, with the development of computer technology, it has become very easy to fabricate fake documents and such economic offences are increasing rapidly which adversely affecting the nation and public at large. Such crime is not less than proxy war by enemy of the country.”

Fatta is lodged in Sabarmati Central Jail since his arrest in May 2014 by ED officials. The ED detected more than Rs 5,000 crore hawala transaction through Fatta to Hong Kong and Dubai. The case also involves several diamond traders, including Madanlal Jain, among others.