Cheating case: HC grants anticipatory bail to Pune builder

The Bombay High Court today granted interim protection from arrest to Pune-based real estate developer D S Kulkarni and his wife in an alleged cheating case.
Justice A S Gadkari passed the order while hearing the anticipatory bail pleas filed by D S Kulkarni, the owner of DSK Builders, and his wife Hemanti Kulkarni.
The couple approached the high court after a sessions court in Pune rejected their pleas for their anticipatory bail applications.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune police had lodged a case last month against the company and the couple for allegedly cheating around 1,350 depositors, who claimed that they did not get back their investments amounting to about Rs 50 crore.

The high court today said it would hear the pleas on November 17.
"Interim protection from arrest is granted till then," Justice Gadkari said.

After scores of complaints, the EOW had last week conducted searches at DSK's offices and residence and wrote to the banks to freeze the group's 70 accounts. They had also written to various agencies such as SEBI, ED and sub-registrar offices.
For the past several months, all these investors, largely pensioners, were queueing up at the DSK's office here.
As many as 170 depositors, who invested in the Fixed Deposit (FD) scheme of the DSK group, had approached the Pune Police a couple of months ago, demanding that a cheating case be registered against the firm.

According to police, a senior citizen, Jitendra Mulekar (65) had last month complained to the police claiming to have invested Rs 4,40,647 in the scheme. The investor alleged that he neither received the principal amount nor the interest since February 2017.