E-Paper
HC pulls up Meerut SSP
The Allahabad High Court pulled up Navneet Sikera, senior superintendent of police, Meerut, for his failure to trace the ex-mayor of Meerut Arun Kumar Jain. It said the SSP?s affidavit in this regard spoke volumes about inefficiency and incompetence of the police in apprehending influential persons implicated in white collar crimes. Making the above observation, Justice Sunil Ambwani said that the SSP?s affidavit showed he did not make any effective efforts to trace the whereabouts of Jain.
The Allahabad High Court pulled up Navneet Sikera, senior superintendent of police, Meerut, for his failure to trace the ex-mayor of Meerut Arun Kumar Jain. It said the SSP’s affidavit in this regard spoke volumes about inefficiency and incompetence of the police in apprehending influential persons implicated in white collar crimes.
Making the above observation, Justice Sunil Ambwani said that the SSP’s affidavit showed he did not make any effective efforts to trace the whereabouts of Jain. “The explanation that Jain was not living in Meerut and could not be traced, is absurd as a person who is a prominent resident of Meerut and was the mayor of Meerut for two terms, and was running a company with authorised share capital of Rs 9 crore, could not have eluded the police”, said the court.
Earlier, while hearing a winding up petition, the court had issued bailable warrants against Arun Kumar Jain of Meerut, which could not be served. Then a non-bailable warrant was issued but for long time the police could not apprehend Jain. Thus, the Court directed the SSP, Meerut, to appear in person and file his affidavit.
The court said that Arun Kumar Jain would appear in this court on August 7 for framing of charges.
The court passed this order in the matter of M/s Electra (India) Ltd.
Elaborating the background of the case, the court said, “The company- M/s Electra (India) Ltd suffered losses of crores of rupees. The applicant- Arun Kumar Jain was ex-managing director of the company. He is under statutory liability to help the official liquidator to realise the assets for taking care of the liabilities. Instead, the applicant is playing hide and seek with the court, causing obstruction in administration of justice.
In the liquidation proceedings , the court has statutory duty to appropriate all the assets of the company towards its liabilities. In the present case, more than Rs 12 crore has been mis-utilized or may have been misappropriated. The court cannot come to any effective conclusion of the proceedings until the directors, who have statutory liability to give information to the court, provide requisite assistance”.