Srinagar: A trial Court at Anantnag on Friday rejected the bail plea of Pankaj Jain of New Delhi, who along with a Kolkata resident has been accused of extorting money by instituting fake complaints against high-profile Indian businessman in different courts of Anantnag and Kulgam.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Anantnag rejected the bail plea after recording that the accused person along with his associates was deeply and actively involved in a serious offence that has national and social ramifications.

The court also recorded that the allegations are also serious in a sense that justice delivery institution has been used for extorting money by filing false criminal complaints, requiring an effective and transparent investigation into the matter.

“Keeping in view the entire factual matrix and material on record, the court is of the opinion that grant of bail at this stage of the case would not serve the interests of justice; therefore, the instant bail application stands rejected with a direction to Investigating Team to complete the investigation as soon as possible and file the chargesheet within a period of three weeks from today,” the judge said.

He further directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to locate all the persons whose particulars were given by one Vikram Bharadwaj to conclude the investigation in a proper way.

The police report submitted by the prosecution before the court states that SHO police station Anantnag received a complaint letter from Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) South Kashmir, stating that an office under the name of Host and Finance is being allegedly run at KP Road Anantnag by Ajay Kumar Agarwal of Kolkata, involved in instituting fake complaints in different courts of Anantnag and Kulgam against some persons residing outside the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“The said person has established an office and exploits his employees as a front for filing these false complaints,” the letter reads.

It states that the accused Ajay Kumar was obtaining non-bailable warrants and was later using them for extracting money from his ‘targets’.

On the basis of complaint letter, a case was registered against the accused under section 420, 467, 468 PRC at police station Anantnag and SIT was constituted to probe the matter.

The police report reveals that statements of two witnesses alleged to have been working for Ajay Agarwal, namely Lubna Bashir D/o Bashir Ahmad Malik R/o Naiebasti Anantnag and Tajamul Islam S/o Mohammad Shoban Kumar R/o Brakpara under Section 164-A CrPC were also recorded.

The witnesses have stated that Ajay Agarwal was getting false complaints submitted in various courts in their name.

Police in their report have said that they have raided the office of accused and seized three laptops, documents and one pen drive.

The report further reads that an SIT was formed by SSP Anantnag whereupon further investigation was undertaken in the case.

“During further investigation it surfaced that non-bailable warrants were being issued in a fake and frivolous case and this whole incident had been orchestrated by one Ajay Kumar Agarwal on the behest of Pankaj Jain,” the report submitted by the prosecution says.

The scam came to the fore in January 2019 after two persons, both victims in the case, Vikram Bharadwaj and Alok Kumar, both residents of Delhi, approached the In-charge of SIT stating that on 19 January 2019, a police party from Kashmir visited the house of Vikram and produced a non-bailable warrant which was issued by Judicial Magistrate 1st class Qazigund.

According to the police report, the police party had arrested Bharadwaj and taken him to New Delhi’s SafdarJung Police Station. However, he was released later after police suspected that the warrant was issued in a fraud and frivolous case.

NUSRAT SIDIQ