Deepali Kalia –
Delhi court on May 29 granted bail to businessman Navneet Kalra, accused in the oxygen concentrator black marketing case
Arun Kumar Garg, Chief metropolitan magistrate gave the order while hearing the bail application filed by the businessman who was arrested on May 17 for allegedly hoarding huge no. of oxygen concentrators and selling them at exorbitant prices.
Court granted bail to the businessman on a personal bond of two sureties each of Rs 1 lakh and imposed certain conditions that Kalra should not contact the customers to whom he had sold the concentrators, neither tamper with evidence or influence the witnesses and cooperate with the investigation whenever required.
During a recent raid at Khan chacha ,Town hall and Nege&Ju restaurants owned by him, 524 oxygen concentrators were found,.
The business man is currently in judicial custody till June 3.
In response to the remarks by senior advocate representing the businessman, Vikas Pahwa that Kalra had no criminal intent to cheat people and cannot be placed under pretrial detention, Atul Shrivastava, additional public prosecutor, representing the Delhi police stated that, “His intention was to cheat people and make profit. This is a white-collar crime. He sold oxygen concentrators to needy people lying on death beds”.
The prosecutor representing the Delhi police told the court that the oxygen concentrators were imported from China and were not premium or from Germany as claimed by the business man.
He further stated that the devices were being sold at exorbitant price range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 70,000 when the actual price range of a piece was of Rs 16,000 to 22,000
The prosecutor had sought rejection of bail on the grounds that the evidence was tampered with as material was deleted from the device and given the direness of the offence.
Vikas Pahwa, Senior advocate representing Kalra on the other hand had contended that it was a case of “high headedness” and of making Kalra a scapegoat.