Pune: Nearly 40 months after his arrest, Pune’s prominent real estate developer Deepak Sakharam Kulkarni, popularly known as DSK, was granted bail by the Supreme Court in connection with the ₹2,043 crore investors’ fraud case on Tuesday. DSK is unlikely to come out of prison soon as four other cases are pending against him in various courts.
The apex court judges, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice J K Maheshwari, granted bail to DSK in a case registered in October 2017, leading to his arrest.
The judges in their order stated, “Rahul Chitnis, learned counsel appearing for the State of Maharashtra, has filed a counter affidavit and opposed the grant of bail. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having perused the record, we are of the view that the petitioner be released on bail. Therefore, we direct the release of the petitioner on bail subject to the conditions to be imposed by the trial court. The Special Leave Petition is disposed of accordingly. Pending applications, if any, also stand disposed of.”
Advocates Aashutosh Srivastava and Ritesh Yeolekar represented DSK for the regular bail petition filed before the Supreme Court in the main case registered against him at Shivajinagar police station on October 28, 2017. The realtor was booked under Sections 406, 409, 411, 418, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 109, 120-B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and Section 3 and 4 of Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors (MPID) Act.
Srivastava in his submission before the court said, “The allegations made against DSK are vague and he has been falsely implicated in the alleged offence. He was arrested on February 17, 2018 and has been incarcerated since then and also the investigation is already completed and charge sheet has been filed by the investigating officer and all the properties were already seized by the authorities and all the necessary documents and material evidences have already been procured by the investigating agencies and placed on records and there is nothing left to be recovered from him. Most importantly, the trial is not initiated in the matter.”
{{/usCountry}}Srivastava in his submission before the court said, “The allegations made against DSK are vague and he has been falsely implicated in the alleged offence. He was arrested on February 17, 2018 and has been incarcerated since then and also the investigation is already completed and charge sheet has been filed by the investigating officer and all the properties were already seized by the authorities and all the necessary documents and material evidences have already been procured by the investigating agencies and placed on records and there is nothing left to be recovered from him. Most importantly, the trial is not initiated in the matter.”
{{/usCountry}}In February 2019, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached properties worth ₹904 crore belonging to the DSK group in connection with money laundering. Section 2(y) of Prevention of Money Laundering Act was registered on March 8, 2018 as the cases registered under Section 420 of IPC empower ED to attach properties.
Advocate Srivastava while seeking bail cited the judgment by Supreme Court in Legal Aid Committee Representing Undertrial Prisoners versus Union of India.
“Undertrials cannot indefinitely be detained pending trial. No person ought to suffer adverse consequences of his acts unless the same is established before a neutral arbiter. He has already served around half the punishment for most of the offences, which he has been charged with, amounting to arbitrary detention, which clearly violates their basic human rights guaranteed by Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Further, the principle of “Bail is a rule and Jail is an exception prevails”, Srivastava told the court.
In February 2022, the cases related to cheating of investors and homebuyers by DSK, his wife Hemanthi Kulkarni, and 11 others were shifted from Pune to a special court in Mumbai, empowered under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
In the case of the PMLA offence, there are 50 accused parties, including DSK, wife, and son and all the others are companies related to them.
Earlier last week, a local court in Pune granted bail to DSK in a Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act, 1963 (MOFA) case registered against him in 2016.