Everonn founder gets bail, can't visit firm for 3 weeks

The high court on Tuesday granted bail to Everonn Education Ltd’s founder P Kishore, 35 days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested him on charges of trying to bribe a top Income Tax official.

Kishore will not visit his company for the next three weeks, a condition the vacation court placed for the bail. On Tuesday’s order was in response to a bail plea Kishore moved with city resident Uttam Chand Bohra, one of the three people the premier probe agency apprehended on August 30.

Judge K B K Vasuki granted bail to both and asked Kishore to furnish a Rs 50,000 personal bond and two sureties to the satisfaction of the judicial magistrate.

Kishore, a first-generation entrepreneur who started his career in the early 1980s, has been asked to appear at the court every day for the next two weeks. After that, he will have to appear before the CBI, as and when required, according to the order.

On Tuesday, Kishore’s counsel argued — based on a Supreme Court order— that voice samples cannot be used as legal evidence during investigation. Kishore would file an appeal challenging CBI court’s decision to take voice sample as an evidence in this case, he added.

On September 20, the CBI had sought the court to submit within two weeks an analysis report of the voice samples from telephonic conversation between I-T official Andasu Ravindra, Kishore and Bohra, a resident of the commercial pocket of Sowcarpet in north Chennai.

The samples were collected from a forensic laboratory in Hyderabad.

He also argued that the CBI did not seize the money from Kishore; so he cannot be chargesheeted.

On the other side, the CBI’s special prosecutor argued that the agency had a telephone conversation as evidence. It wanted to know the source of the Rs 50 lakh that was impounded.

The three persons were arrested for “bribing” Ravindra as an additional I-T commissioner. The CBI alleged that Kishore had taxable income of around Rs 116 crore. He, in a bid to reduce this amount to Rs 60 crore, bribed the I-T official of Rs 50 lakh, it added.

Even as  the CBI’s special court is hearing the case, Kishore and Bohra had filed a bail petition at Madras High Court.