Judge Sanjeev Agarwal of Rouse Avenue District court today allowed Industrialist Gautam Thapar’s custody to the Enforcement Directorate till 15th August over allegations of siphoning of funds from a loan taken from Yes Bank. The court has allowed Thapar’s lawyer Sandeep Kapur from Karanjawala&Co. to meet him at the offices of the Enforcment Directorate for half an hour today evening.
On Behalf of Gautam Thapar, Adv. Vijay Aggarwal, Advocate, briefed by Sandeep Kapur, Senior Partner, Karanjawala & Co. said before the court that that the Enforcement Directorate has not stated, in their application, the reasons for which they require custodial interrogation, that the evidence in the case being primarily documentary in nature, custodial interrogation is not required, that in such an investigation, a Case Diary ought to have been maintained by the ED and the Court should be able to summon such Case Diary in order to review the investigation conducted and that the ED ought not to have arrested Mr. Thapar, as the current ECIR is based on a scheduled offence and the investigation of the CBI has barely progressed etc. In addition, a number of miscellaneous applications were filed.
“Detailed arguments were conducted today, with Thapar’s legal team laying out the reasons for which custodial interrogation was not required. Pronouncing it’s judgement, the Ld. Court was pleased to grant the Enforcement Directorate remand until 15.08.2021, while allowing Mr. Thapar to meet with his lawyer for half an hour, in the offices of the Enforcement Directorate, “Sandeep Kapur, Senior Partner, Karanjawala & Co shared with this writer.
An ECIR has been registered against Mr. Gautam Thapar, M/s. Avantha Realty Ltd., M/s. Oyster Buildwell Pvt. Ltd. and others, alleging criminal breach of trust, cheating, criminal conspiracy and forgery for diversion / misappropriation of public money during the period 2017 to 2019, thereby causing losses to the tune of Rs. 466.51 Crores to Yes Bank. On 03.08.2021, the Enforcement Directorate raided the offices/residence of the alleged accused persons, and arrested Gautam Thapar in the aforesaid FIR; he will be produced before the Rouse Avenue Court on 04.08.2021. Mr. Gautam Thapar is being represented by a team from Karanjawala & Co., led by Mr. Sandeep Kapur, Senior Partner and comprising of Veer Sandhu, Rajat Soni, Vivek Suri, Mridul Yadav, Niharika Karanjawala-Misra, Apoorva Pandey and Abhimanshu Dhyani.