On Thursday, the High Court of Bombay granted pre-arrest bail to Shashikala aka Baby Patankar since the Worli police failed to connect her with the alleged transactions designed to cheat a Customs’ clearing agent to the tune of ₹1.98 crore on the pretext of selling him 5 kg gold at cheaper rates in Oct 2021.
In Sept 2023, the Worli police booked Patankar, along with one Parashuram Ramkishan Munde, for allegedly duping Kirit Chavan, 61, a Cuffe Parade resident who owns a customs clearing agency. In his complaint to the police, Chavan said he planned to get into gold trading & had contacted Munde through his acquaintances. Munde, who identified himself to be a director in RRM Gold Trading Pvt Ltd, purportedly told him that he buys gold in customs auctions at a lot cheaper rates than the prevailing market price & offered Chauhan gold at a cheaper rate.
Mundhe, according to Chauhan, called him on Oct 21, 2023, & took him to the Bhiwandiwala Building at Worli Naka where he introduced him to Patankar claiming she had five kilograms of raw gold, & it was available for sale.
He alleged that Patankar showed him a total of 6.5 kg gold - five gold bars weighing 1 kg each & 15 gold biscuits & he verified & found the gold to be genuine. Munde then gave the complainant two bills. The first bill of ₹1.31 crore was for three kilograms of gold & the second was ₹87.69 lakh for the remaining two kg gold. The complainant said he accordingly paid an amount of ₹1.98 crore to the accused but did not get the gold.
While Munde was arrested, Patankar approached the high court for pre-arrest bail. Acting on her plea, the HC on Oct 18, 2023, granted her interim protection from arrest, observing that “prima facie there is neither allegation of inducement nor material to connect the applicant (Patankar) with the amount of which the first informant was allegedly defrauded.”
On Thursday, a single Judge bench of Justice NJ Jamadar confirmed the anticipatory bail to the woman, who was earlier arrested in a drugs trafficking case.
Justice Jamadar said, “It appears that the transaction was primarily between the first informant & Parshuram Munde (accused No. 1)".
The court said that based on the material collected during the investigation after passing the interim order, an inference cannot be drawn that Patankar had any nexus with the account to which the money was allegedly transferred by the complainant.
While confirming the interim order, the bench said, “In the absence of any further material to connect the applicant with the alleged offence & the investigation having been completed, I am impelled to hold that the order of interim bail deserves to be made absolute".
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