By PTI
NOIDA: A Gautam Buddh Nagar court on Wednesday rejected a bail application of Satendra Singh Bhasin alias Montu, owner of Grand Venice shopping mall and an accused in the Rs 3,500-crore Bike Bot scam.
Bhasin, a resident of Delhi, had moved the District and Sessions Court for bail in eight cases in connection with the fraud by the Noida-registered firm Garvit Innovative Promoters Limited (GIPL).
Hearing the case, special judge Ved Prakash Verma noted that there are similar cases against the accused and ‘thousands of crores of rupees’ involved in the ‘financial crime’ related to GIPL as the case pertains to an economic offence.
“Hence, there is no ground for releasing the accused in view of the facts, situations, seriousness and nature of the crime, and without comments on the merits and demerits. The bail application of the accused is rejected,” he stated in the order.
The GIPL is accused of defrauding lakhs of gullible investors to the tune of Rs 3,500 crore and Rs 124 crore of it has been diverted in Bhasin-owned companies like Bhasin Infotech and Infrastructure and Vinamr Infra — which worked as frontal firms in the case now famous as the ‘Bike Bot scam’.
Assistant District Government Counsel (ADGC) Dharmendra Jaint said Bhasin was held after an FIR was lodged at the Dadri police station under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 467, 468, 471 (all three related to forgery of documents), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offender) and 120B (party to criminal conspiracy).
Kitab Kaur, the complainant in the case, said she had got in touch with officials of Garvit Innovative Promoters Limited (or Bike Bot) through her acquaintances.
She was told about the scheme and assured monthly returns on investment.
Kaur claimed that she had ‘invested’ Rs 34,15,500 in the Bike Bot scheme but did not get the assured returns and after several reminders she was given a ‘bogus cheque’ by a company official.
The defence lawyer argued that accused Bhasin was being ‘wrongly framed’ in the case as he did nothing wrong.
Bhasin’s lawyer also claimed that the accused has no connection with GIPL company.
His lawyer further submitted that Bhasin was never summoned or sent a notice by the Dadri police station though he was issued a show-cause notice by the Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the case, in July 2020 and had been to Lucknow to record his statement for the central agency.
The Noida-registered Garvit Innovative Promoters Limited (GIPL) company had in 2018 come out with the multi-level marketing scheme “Bike Bot” and lured investors with a promise of double returns in a year, police said.
They sought Rs 62, Rs 100 in investment for a motorcycle taxi and assured monthly returns besides double the investment amount in just one year but failed to deliver on the promise.
The firm has duped around 2.25 lakh investors to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore across UP, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, according to a police estimate.
Around a dozen people, including Bike Bot boss Sanjay Bhati, have been arrested so far, police said.