Black money case: Court grants bail to Moin Qureshi, staff

NEW DELHI: Controversial businessman Moin Akhtar Qureshi was today granted bail by a Delhi court after he appeared before it as an accused in a black money case filed by IT Department for allegedly not disclosing his income of nearly Rs 20 crore.

A meat exporter, Qureshi appeared before the court in pursuance to summons issued against him on January 30.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Devendra Kumar Sharma granted bail to Qureshi on furnishing of a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount.

Qureshi's employee Aditya Sharma, also summoned as accused in the case, was also granted bail by the court after he appeared before it and furnished the bail bond.

While granting bail, the court imposed condition on both the accused that they should not leave the country without its prior permission.

The court fixed the case for April 29 for recording of pre-charge evidence.

The court had earlier taken cognisance of the complaint filed against them by the Income Tax (IT) department, through its standing counsel Brijesh Garg.

The complaint was filed under various provisions of the IT Act relating to making false statement and the IPC for the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, giving or fabricating false evidence in a judicial proceeding.

IT Department's Deputy Director Gaurav Pundir had filed the complaint, saying the department was conducting a probe in the matter and had questioned Qureshi on February 15, 2014 at his residence here.

During questioning, Qureshi made a false statement when he was asked about his income and assets and those in the names of his family members or associates, the complaint has alleged, adding, he was asked to furnish the list of lockers in banks.

According to the complaint, Qureshi had told the officials that he has only one locker with HSBC Bank's South Extension branch but during investigation, the department found that he was having 11 lockers which were in the names of his employees and associates but the articles belonged to the businessman.

The lockers were operated by Qureshi's employees of A M Q Group on his instructions, it has said.

The complaint has said that over Rs 11.26 crore in cash and jewellery worth over Rs 8.35 crore were found in the lockers.

Later on, Qureshi also admitted that the money and the articles belonged to him and surrendered everything to the department, saying it could deduct the income tax from the seized money and return rest of the articles to him.

The department took sanction to prosecute Qureshi and Sharma under the provisions of the IT Act and filed complaint in the court.

It had urged the court to summon Qureshi and Sharma for facing the trial in the matter.

Regarding Sharma, the IT department has said that he tried to mislead the department by making false statement regarding the lockers.