Citibank fraud: Jain’s bail plea rejected,testimony of 5 recorded

The court of Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Ashok Mann recorded the evidence of Harish Khanna,Sandeep Jain,Ravinder Anand,Puneet Bali and Ritika Goel.

On the other hand,the court of Additional Sessions Judge Vimal Kumar rejected the bail plea of Gaurav Jain after his lawyers pleaded that as bail have been granted to a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case,he should also get it. Citibank lawyer Harish Malhotra had opposed Jain’s move. He said: “When that argument was put forward,we contended that as the bail plea of Sanjay Gupta,another accused in the case,was rejected by the High Court,the bail plea of Jain should also be rejected.”

Gupta,an employee of Hero Group,was accused of taking crores of rupees as commission from main accused Shivraj Puri,and investing it in real estate. “I argued that as the cases of both the co accused — Sanjay and Gaurav — were the same,and the former had been denied bail by the High Court,Gaurav should not be given bail either. There has been no change in circumstances. Moreover,day-to-day trial has not taken place in the 2G case,” said Malhotra.

The High Court had said on August 8 that the trial in this particular case should get over in six months,by February 9,2012. The day-to-day trial was initiated keeping this in view.

On November 12,a city court had dismissed the second anticipatory bail of Diksha Puri,mother of Citibank fraud mastermind Shivraj Puri. The court also declared Diksha as a proclaimed offender after she started evading arrest following the rejection of her anticipatory bail application. Her earlier bail plea was also dismissed by the court.

A petition by Puri,a former Citibank relationship manager,to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation was recently dismissed by a local court. He had stated that he had no faith in the investigation being conducted by the Haryana Police. Puri and his father,Raghuraj Puri,are lodged in the Gurgaon Jail.