Police take Navneet Kalra to his restaurants, office to look for evidence

Kalra was arrested on Sunday evening for allegedly hoarding oxygen concentrators and selling them at inflated prices. A laptop and some “crucial documents” related to the sale and purchase of oxygen concentrators were recovered from Kalra’s Okhla office and other business establishments, an officer said on condition of anonymity.

A team of the Delhi Police’s crime branch on Tuesday took businessman Navneet Kalra to his three restaurants — Khan Chacha, Town Hall and Nege & Ju — his opticals shop, Dayal Opticals, and an office in Okhla for “further recoveries” after previous seizures of oxygen concentrators and other medical equipment, investigators said.

Delhi Police's Crime Branch brings Navneet Kalra for interrogation in connection with alleged black marketing of oxygen concentrators, at his Khan Chacha restaurant in New Delhi (PTI Photo)

Kalra was arrested on Sunday evening for allegedly hoarding oxygen concentrators and selling them at inflated prices.

A laptop and some “crucial documents” related to the sale and purchase of oxygen concentrators were recovered from Kalra’s Okhla office and other business establishments, an officer said on condition of anonymity.

Kalra was arrested from his in-laws’ farmhouse in Gurugram on Sunday. On Monday, the Saket district court sent him to three days of custodial interrogation after the crime branch said his custody was required to unearth the whole nexus, the conspiracy behind the black marketing of devices and to track the money trail. The police said he was on the run since the recovery of 524 oxygen concentrators from three of his restaurants, and from the office of Matrix Cellular between May 5 and May 7.

On Tuesday, Kalra was also interrogated by the investigating team to ascertain his role in the case, the police officer said.

The officer said Kalra told the interrogators that he learnt of the raids on his restaurants from television news channels. Kalra told the police that since the channels identified him as the “mastermind” behind the hoarding racket, he left for the farmhouse in Gurugram with his family, fearing torture by the police, the officer said, sharing details from Kalra’s questioning.

The police have alleged that for each concentrator, Kalra and his partners made a profit of at least ₹55,000. The concentrators were bought for ₹14,000-15,000 each and sold at ₹70,000-75,000. The police said that since October last year, Kalra and his associates bought nearly 7,500 concentrators and more than 2,000 concentrators were sold in Delhi.

Five people -- the manager of Nege & Ju restaurant, and the chief executive officer (CEO) and three senior officers of Matrix Cellular -- were arrested since the recovery of the concentrators. All five were later released on bail. While granting bail to the accused on May 13, the court said: “No prima facie case under Section 420 IPC is made out against the accused, at least from the contents of the FIR”, adding it was unable to understand the offence they had committed as the government did not regulate the prices of the devices.