E-Paper
HC grants anticipatory bail to parking contractor of Chandigarh’s Sector 26
The parking, contractor, Mohammad Idrish Khan, had approached the high court after his plea was dismissed by a trial court on March 29
The Punjab and Haryana high court has granted interim protection from arrest to Mohammad Idrish Khan, the parking contractor of the Sector-26 Grain Market, who has been booked by the Chandigarh Police for charging entry fee at the market’s gates.
Khan had approached the high court after his plea was dismissed by a trial court on March 29.
Notably, he was booked under Sections 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code on March 19 after the directions of the high court.
The court directions had come on the plea of one Amit Kumar Bansal who had alleged that entry fee was being charged from even those living inside the market. The contractor was assigned only some particular slots for the operation and management of paid parking, but he had been levying parking fees at all entry points of the market, it was alleged.
In his plea, Khan had told the court that he had been falsely implicated in the case at the instance of his competitors, who were nursing some grudge against him. Even if there is any violation of condition of the contract in charging the fee, it would best attract some kind of civil liability and lodging of the FIR was an abuse of process of law, he had argued.
The court, while seeking response from UT by August 18, ordered that in the event of Khan’s arrest, he be released on interim bail. However, he has been asked to join investigation as and when called by the police.
