New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday discharged former cricketer and politician Gautam Gambhir of all charges in a case of alleged criminal breach of trust and cheating flat buyers.
Following the discharge by additional chief metropolitan magistrate Dharmender Singh, the matter would be now heard by some other judge.
The police had filed a supplementary chargesheet in September last year in the case against Gambhir, a BJP MP from east Delhi, and several others under various sections, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 34 (criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention), of the IPC.
The FIR was registered over the complaint of 50 flat buyers, who alleged that they booked flats in a real estate project in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram in 2011 but it did not take off.
Advocate Paritosh Budhiraja, counsel for Gambhir, said his client was just the brand ambassador of the company and had nothing to do with the day to day affairs. He also said that he was the additional director in the company for a brief time. He added that the judgment on discharge would be made available tomorrow, Friday only after which he can know about the reasoning given by the court.
According to the counsel, no evidence was found against Gambhir after the police investigation in the first charge sheet where he was kept in column 12. He said that no evidence was found against his client even in the supplementary charge sheet.
{{/usCountry}}According to the counsel, no evidence was found against Gambhir after the police investigation in the first charge sheet where he was kept in column 12. He said that no evidence was found against his client even in the supplementary charge sheet.
{{/usCountry}}The complaint had alleged that Gambhir was a director and brand ambassador of the joint project of Rudra Buildwell Reality Pvt Ltd and H R Infracity Pvt Ltd, against which a case was lodged in 2016 for allegedly duping people of crores of rupees on the pretext of booking apartments in the housing project.
Besides Gambhir and the firm, the charge sheet also included the names of its other promoters -- Mukesh Khurana, Gautam Mehra and Babita Khurana -- as accused. Mukesh is currently lodged in the Noida jail in connection with another cheating case filed by the home buyers.
The complainants have alleged that “the project was extensively promoted and advertised and Gambhir, as the brand ambassador, helped in attracting and inviting buyers to invest in the project”.