Heera Gold's Nowhera Shaikh granted conditional bail by Hyderabad court

Nowhera Shaikh, the managing director of Heera Gold was granted conditional bail on Wednesday by the Metropolitan Sessions court, Nampally in Hyderabad. The court has asked her to deposit an amount of Rs 5 crore as surety. The court has also placed travel restrictions and set her cooperation with the CCS as one of her bail conditions. 

 

The Central Crime Station (CCS) division of the Telangana police had arrested Nowhera on October 16 for allegedly cheating investors in her companies. 

 

Speaking to TNM, Ram Kumar Assistant Commissioner of Police with CCS said, “The Nampally Court granted conditional bail, she has been asked to deposit Rs 5 crore before October 29 and was released after giving a surety of Rs 5 lakh to the court. She has been asked to surrender her passport and not leave the country without court approval. She will also be cooperating with the police and one of her bail condition is that she submits herself for interrogation on October 27,29,30 and 31 from 10 am to 1 PM." 

 

Nowhera was arrested during the course of an investigation into a case against her at Banjara Hills police station for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal intimidation. 

 

Police had also booked her under sections of the Telangana Deposits of Financial Establishment Act 1999 and The Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978. 

 

Nowhera runs 15 companies in India and with operations across the Middle East. She is also the party president of the recently formed All India Mahila Empowerment Party, which contested Assembly elections in Karnataka.

 

While hearing her case on Tuesday, the Metropolitan sessions Court questioned the CCS police over the provisions under which Nowhera was booked and the evidence collected by the police to justify her arrest. The CCS had sought for an extra 10 days custody of Nowhera, as she was uncooperative during the course of interrogation after her arrest, said the police official in charge of the case.

 

The court while hearing the case on Tuesday had raised questions on the witness statements recorded by the police by terming the statements as “stereotypical”, the court had asked the prosecution to show prima face evidence on defaults made by the company, “Is there any proof to show that the dividends were not paid to the investors for the past one year?” the judge had asked the prosecutor, reported Times of India.

 

Speaking to TNM earlier about the points raised by the sessions court, the Deputy Commissioner of Police incharge of CCS, Aravind Mohanty said, “There is no bar to such a parallel investigation being undertaken, there are multiple cases where different agencies do a parallel investigation,".The CCS is of the view that they booked cases against Nowhera based on their jurisdictional powers.

 

"Other agencies have other mandates and we would be doing according to our mandate," he added. The CCS had on Wednesday submitted to the court point by point responses to the questions raised by Sessions Judge and the defence.

 

When asked how many depositors have so far accused the Nowhera group, the DCP replied saying, "The company has refused to cooperate with the police, so there is no idea on how many depositors are actually there, there is no information on the financial health of these firms," he added.