Eight months after demonetization, an accused in a case is experiencing its aftershocks. The kidnap accused from Banaskantha has now knocked on the doors of the high court with a prayer to direct the Reserve Bank of India to exchange Rs2.50 lakh in old denomination notes.
Eight months after demonetization, an accused in a case is experiencing its aftershocks. The kidnap accused from Banaskantha has now knocked on the doors of the high court with a prayer to direct the Reserve Bank of India to exchange Rs2.50 lakh in old denomination notes.
Kalpesh Patel is charged with kidnapping the dean of Patan Medical College, Dr. Rajesh Mehta, who was later rescued from the former’s residence in Mehsana four days later.
During primary investigation, police had recovered Rs2.50 lakh from him. It included 300 notes in Rs500 and 100 notes in Rs1,000 denomination. The seized cash was deposited with the Banaskantha district sessions court as ‘muddamal’.
Advocate for the accused petitioner, Kamlesh Kotai, submitted before the single bench judge AJ Desai on Monday that though the high court had directed all lower courts to either exchange the scrapped currency notes before December 2016 or deposit them in its account, in this case, the money was neither deposited nor exchanged.
He further submitted that when the accused was released on bail in March, he moved an application seeking that the cash be returned to him as it was his personal income accrued from maturity of an insurance policy.
The court subsequently directed the police to hand over the cash to the accused. However, the accused flatly refused to accept the now redundant currency. On March 24, the police accompanied him and they approached the RBI to exchange the notes, but the federal bank refused to do so stating the deadline was December 2016.
Post this development, he moved another petition before the trial court with a prayer to direct the RBI to exchange the notes. Though three months have passed since the application was moved, the trial court is yet to pass an order.
After hearing the primary submission of the petitioner, the single bench judge AJ Desai on Monday issued notice to the RBI, the union finance ministry and the registrar of Banaskantha district court directing them to file replies before August 21, when the matter is kept for further hearing.
The case
Dean of Patan Medical College, Dr. Rajesh Mehta, was kidnapped by Kalpesh Patel and co-accused Hitendra Patel who had demanded Rs2 crore ransom. Four days later, on August 24, Mehta was rescued from Kalpesh’s house in Mehsana. Gujarat police had formed 16 teams to crack the case. Kalpesh had worked as Dr. Mehta’s driver in Valsad, hence he knew he was well off.
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