BHUPENDRA T SHUKLA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD learned Counsel on behalf of the applicant and the learned public Prosecutor on behalf of the respondent.

(2.) THE applicant herein was arrested on 7-8-2009 in Crime no. 184/2009 of Panaji Police Station, under Sections 468, 471,379, 420 r/w section 120 (B) I. P. C. , and was initially remanded to Police custody, and from 19-8-2009 has been in judicial custody. His application for bail filed on 3-9-2009 came to be rejected by the learned Sessions Judge on 7-9-2009, and as such the applicant is before this Court seeking bail.

(3.) ON the basis of information that certain suspicious persons were residing in Hotel Solmar, the Police Inspector arrested five persons from Hotel solmar, and one of them is Rahul, s/o Rakesh Shetty, and when the said persons were interrogated they could not give any satisfactory answers, and as such were placed under arrest. On the basis of information provided by another accused, one of the said five persons, namely Hukum Singh Rao that the applicant herein had met him, the applicant came to be arrested from ashok Plaza Hotel and in his room a bag was found with certain documents, namely credit/debit cards, details of which have been mentioned in para 5 of the reply filed. It is the case of the prosecution that the applicant along with his other gang members visited Casino Royale and Casino Carnival and used the said forged credit cards and siphoned lakhs of Rupees. It is also stated that the applicant along with his other gang members has fraudulently obtained PAN cards and driving license in different names having their photographs which they have used to gain entries in the said Casinos, and similarly they have prepared forged credit cards in different names and making use of writer copied the stolen data in those cards, and thereafter used the said cards as genuine. It is also stated that a letter has been sent to the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Panaji, to verify whether the PAN cards are genuine or otherwise, and if so what are the documents provided by them and the required information is awaiting which will help further investigations of the case. It is also stated that Police has sent letters to the Managers of Casino Royale and casino Carnival and the required information is awaited. It is also stated that cctv of both the Casinos is collected by the Police in order to establish that the offence has been committed by all the accused persons.