Chandigarh: Court denies anticipatory bail to parking contractor

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Chandigarh, March 29

Additional Sessions Judge Rajeev K Beri denied an anticipatory bail to a parking contractor of the Sector 26 grain market, accused of fleecing people.

Mohammad Idrish Khan had filed an anticipatory bail application in a case registered against him for the offences punishable under Sections 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC at the Sector 26 police station.

The case was registered against the contractor and his employees after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on March 16 directed the police to register a criminal case if parking staff is found charging fee at the entry gates of the market. The order was passed on a plea filed by traders who approached the court alleging mismanagement and fleecing at the parking lot. They alleged that the parking contractor had been assigned only some particular slots for the operation and management of paid parking, but he had been levying parking fee even at the market’s entry points, irrespective of where the vehicles were going.

Sanjeev Attri, the counsel for the accused, said the contractor was falsely implicated. He said the contractor had got the contract by making a bid of over Rs2.2 crore per year and deposited an initial amount of over Rs66 lakh with the Market Committee. Attri said certain rivals of the applicants and even some businessmen in the grain market, felt suffocated in running their work because of surveillance of cameras installed there. These businessmen had encroached upon the parking area.

The contractor was ready to join the investigation, but his custodial interrogation was neither required nor sought by the investigating agency in its reply.

Public Prosecutor Jagmohan Singh opposed the anticipatory bail application. The counsel for complainant Arpandeep Naruala argued that the applicant had been fleecing everybody who would enter the grain market area. Recovery of the amount of such collection, the modus operandi etc were to be verified from the applicant. For this, his custodial interrogation would be required.

After hearing of the arguments, the court dismissed the pre-arrest bail. The court observed that as per the investigating agency, the accused was found issuing parking slips at all eight entry points of the market though he was entitled to charge fee for areas demarcated as paid parking. He was charging an entry fee instead of parking fee.