Akbar8217;s sword hangs over cheat8217;s head

CHANDIGARH, FEB 6: It is a sword that Iqbal Singh Gill, a resident of Sector 36, Chandigarh, would give his life for. After all, the trea...

CHANDIGARH, FEB 6: It is a sword that Iqbal Singh Gill, a resident of Sector 36, Chandigarh, would give his life for. After all, the treasured weapon had been presented to his forefathers by no less than Mughal emperor Akbar, along with five villages, for a superb display of bravery by Ali Sher.The sword came to acquire antique value, especially in the international market. Gill was tempted last December to swap it for a whopping Rs 2.5 crore and says he made a deal with two buyers from Delhi and a Frenchman.

After the first installment of the promised Rs 1.25 crore was paid in the form of a bank draft, Gill says he agreed to hand over his prized possession to the buyers. But he was taken aback when his bank returned the draft to him with a major objection: it had not been issued by a Calcutta branch of the Syndicate Bank.

Acting swiftly on the alleged forgery, Gill lodged a complaint with the Sector 36 police and named the buyers as Harinder Singh Mader and A K Srivastava of Chanakaya Puri, Delhi, who,he stated, had visited him with the Frenchman. The duo from Delhi was booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery for the purpose of cheating, using a forged document as genuine, besides criminal conspiracy. Nearly two months after the incident, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today rejected the plea for anticipatory bail of A K Srivastava, a chartered accountant with a Delhi-based computer software company.

Pronouncing his order, Justice R L Anand observed that there was 8220;no merit8221; in the applicant8217;s plea. The judge also turned down the defence counsel8217;s plea for permission to withdraw the application.

Moving the application for anticipatory bail, Srivastava8217;s counsel contended that the accused was an innocent, law abiding citizen, who was being falsely implicated in the case.

Refuting the allegation that Srivastava was an antiques collector, the counsel termed the case as 8220;false8221; and added that the accused came to know about it from the newspapers. Earlier, seeking the registration ofa case, Gill had alleged that a verbal agreement to sell the antique sword had been reached in the first week of December with Mader.