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High Court grants bail to Hemanti Kulkarni
PUNE The Bombay High Court (HC), on Tuesday, granted bail to Hemanti Deepak Kulkarni, co-accused in the investor fraud case worth multiple thousands of crores of rupees
PUNE The Bombay High Court (HC), on Tuesday, granted bail to Hemanti Deepak Kulkarni, co-accused in the investor fraud case worth multiple thousands of crores of rupees.
Her husband, Deepak Sakharam Kulkarni, the real estate mogul, is currently in jail with her, according to their lawyer advocate Aashutosh Srivastava.
The decision was taken by Justice Prakash Deu Naik, with special public prosecutor Praveen Chavan and defence lawyer advocate Aashutosh Srivastava present on Tuesday.
“They were arrested February 17, 2018 and today is August 17, 2021; it is 3.5 years exactly and no charges have been framed by the trial court. As per the chargesheet, considering all immovable property, LIC policies, and bank balances, the value is around ₹904 crore. Those properties have already been attached. These are all old values which are very low. To get the current value, a forensic audit report is required, and no such audit has taken place and therefore, there is no report. The actual value will be 3-4 times higher. There is a discrepancy in the figure quoted by the enforcement directorate and the state police. While the economic offence wing says it is worth ₹2,090 crore, the ED says it is ₹290 crore. The court took this discrepancy into consideration,” said advocate Srivastava.
Bail for Hemanti Kulkarni was rejected by the lower court in 2019 along with DS Kulkarni’s bail application; they had cited multiple reasons including medical grounds for seeking bail. There are other members of the family and their company, DS Kulkarini group, in jail in the same case registered at Shivajinagar police station. Some of the cars confiscated by the police were auctioned, but could not fetch more than a few lakhs.
Multiple witness statements have been recorded in the case which is ongoing at a special court in Pune. The couple was arrested from a hotel in Delhi in 2018.
A group of investors, who invested a good percentage of their life-savings in DSK’s “fixed deposits”, throng the courts in Pune on every hearing. The investment scheme bore fruit for all its investors for over a decade, before the 2008 recession hit DSK’s investment in a SEZ project signed with a foreign company. After a few years, investors started reporting a failure in receipts of their monthly payment.
