Graft case: Bizman in HC against trial court order to provide password of his phone

The Delhi High Court on Thursday agreed to hear the plea of a businessman, arrested by the CBI along with a DRI Additional Director General in a Rs 3 crore bribery case, challenging a trial court order to provide password of his seized phone to the agency.

The plea was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar which allowed it to be listed for hearing during the day.

The lawyers appearing for petitioner Rajesh Dhanda told the high court that a CBI court on Wednesday directed him to provide the password of his phone after which the agency on the same day issued them a notice to appear before it on Thursday at 1pm.

The petition has challenged the trial court order and the CBI notice.

Dhanda was arrested on January 1 by the CBI along with Chander Shekhar, then Additional Director General, DRI, of Ludhiana in connection with the case.

A third person, Anoop Joshi, a clearing house agent, was also arrested by CBI.

Dhanda was later granted bail by the trial court on January 16.

According to CBI, in June 2019, the DRI had conducted a search at a private clearing agency which provides services to various exporters, and some documents pertaining to an exporter were also seized.

According to a complaint received by the agency, Joshi and Dhanda, a close friend of Chander Shekhar, demanded Rs 3 crore on behalf of the public servant for ensuring the complainant is not implicated by the DRI over the documents recovered.

The agency arrested Joshi and Dhanda while allegedly receiving Rs 25 lakh as first installment of the bribe demanded by them on behalf of the officer, the CBI had said the time of arrest.