Court Grants Police 3-Day Custody Of Former IL&FS Chairman

A special Court has granted police three-day custody of Ravi Parthasarathy, former chairman of the bankrupt Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), who was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing.

Special Judge M Jothiraman of the court, constituted under the "Tamil Nadu Protection of Interest of Depositors Act", ordered the police custody while passing orders on a petition from the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Economic Offences Wing-II in Guindy, on June 16.

According to a complaint from 63 Moons Technologies Limited and others against the Infrastructure Transport Networks India (ITNL) and 21 others, they had purchased non-convertible debentures for several crores of rupees.

Ravi Parthasarathy, with the help of other accused, presented rosy financial statements before the common investors, including the complainant and floated deposit schemes in the nature of non-convertible bonds, offering better rate of interest and promising better return.

But the accused failed to return the money deposited by the complainant and it was alleged that they had siphoned off crores of rupees.

Mr Parthasarathy is the seventh accused in the case. He was arrested on June 9 and produced before the Special court on June 10 and was remanded in judicial custody till June 24.

And now, the DSP moved the court again for his custody for interrogation.

The presiding officer noted that Mr Parthasarathy was not subjected to police interrogation. The records show that more than 20 persons are involved in the case. It has to be investigated who are all involved in the occurrence.

The petitioner DSP had deposed that the accused has to be interrogated with respect to the facts which are known to him and to identify the properties obtained illegally.

The investigation in this case is at the initial stage.

The nature of the case absolutely requires the custodial interrogation of the accused for an effective, proper and deep investigation by the police.

The circumstances and nature of the case shows that without custodial interrogation of the accused, the probe cannot be done effectively by the police.

"Hence, considering the nature, gravity, seriousness and magnitude of the case, this court is of the view that police custody has to be ordered in the interest of justice in order to facilitate the Investigating Agency to effectively investigate the case further," the judge said and ordered the custody for three days from June 16.

The accused should be returned to judicial custody on June 19.

During the course of interrogation, Mr Parthasarathy should be treated with human dignity and shall not be subjected to any ill-treatment or harassment during the period of police custody, the judge added.

Ravi Parthasarathy is the former chairman of IL&FS group and non-independent director of ITNL.

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