Mumbai, July 20: Ketan Sheth, the broker held in Rs 92.78 crore seamen's provident fund scam case, was today released on bail of Rs 20 lakhs with one or two sureties of the same amount. Designated judge S G Deshmukh, granting him bail on technical ground, observed that CBI had failed to file chargesheet within 60 days of his arrest. His lawyers, Amit Desai and Vijay Garg, argued that Ketan had been in custody for more than two months and investigations were already over. Documents were already recovered by police. Most of them were with independent institutions or bodies, provident fund organisation, banks, CBI and police. Therefore no purpose would be served by keeping Sheth in custody, they argued. The defence lawyers said that Ketan had already cooperated with the investigating agencies and was ready to offer all assistance in the probe. CBI's counsel Raja Thakre, however, opposed the bail, saying that Sheth was involved in other scam cases. He said that investigation in this case was not over as it was voluminous. Besides, he said, police had yet to record the statements of witnesses and money laundered in the scam had to be traced. In the Rs 5.40 crore Raghuvanshi Cooperative Bank scam case, Ketan secured bail from a magistrate on June 29 on a bond of Rs one lakh.
Police had alleged that Raghuvanshi Bank had purchased government securities worth Rs 5.4 crore through M/S Home Trade. Sheth was its director and played a key role in siphoning off public funds from the bank.
Bureau Report