Jaipur jeweller held for duping HCL chief's wife gets bail

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Sharma granted regular bail to 50-year-old Govind Narain Johri, who had been cheating Shiv Nadar's wife Kiran for years by selling her jewellery studded with fake gems.

The court has granted bail to Narain Johri on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1.5 crore.

However, he has been directed not to leave the country without prior information to the court.

Earlier, the court had granted Johri interim bail. The jeweller used to target only rich and royal families. According to the police, he was previously involved in eight such cases in Jaipur and Gwalior.

He came into contact with Kiran, a resident of New Friends Colony, in 1999. Introducing himself as a leading jeweller from Jaipur, the accused said he dealt in precious gems, stones and jewellery. He claimed to have supplied jewellery to very rich families in Delhi and royalties in Rajasthan over the years.

 

Impressed by his demeanour, the Nadar couple started buying expensive gem-studded jewellery from him, believing it to be original. However, they were shocked when they learnt that Johri, in fact, dealt in fake jewellery.

Kiran got two of her necklaces studded with rubies and other precious stones examined by a gem-testing laboratory here in Jhandewalan, which confirmed they were merely low-quality stones.

Johri was arrested after Kiran had lodged an FIR with the police in October 2011. During interrogation, he purportedly disclosed that he entered business after Class X.

Kiran had trusted the jeweller and bought ornaments worth crores of rupees for the past 12 years, the police said.

Narain Johri had sold jewellery worth Rs 23 crore over the past 12 years to Nadar couple, it said.