Gold assets scam: Gujarat HC suspends lookout circular against stockbrokers Mahendra Shah, son

Slug: Gold assets scam

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has suspended the lookout circular against Mahendra Shah and his son Megh Shah, who intend to return to India from Dubai. They are wanted by multiple agencies in connection with an alleged multicrore gold assets scam. The order follows the Supreme Court’s stay on their arrest last month.

The father-son duo are stockbrokers and hit the headlines last year after the state Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) raided their locked apartment in Paldi and seized 95.5kg of gold worth crores of rupees.

The petitioners approached the high court against the LOC. Their counsel, Siddharth Kheskani, stated that they later made representations to the bureau of immigration at the ministry of home affairs, DRI and ATS, pointing to the Supreme Court’s protective order directing that the applicant not be arrested so long as they cooperate with the investigation. On that basis, he sought a stay on the LOC as the father and son are planning to return from Dubai.

The DRI opposed the pleas contending the SC orders were being relied on out of context.

After the hearing, Justice P M Raval stated, “Considering the orders passed by the apex court granting protection to the present applicants, as aforesaid, it would be in the fitness of things if the execution of lookout circular qua the FIR in questions, be suspended till the returnable date, keeping open all the rights, contentions of the parties before the apex court as and when the matters come up for hearing.” The HC has posted a further hearing of the case on June 29.