In a setback to the Mumbai crime branch, the city Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey has rejected the application for sanction to impose the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) against an NRI and his family members as the agency failed to prove the involvement of an underworld gang in the extortion case.
With the dismissal of MCOCA, the case will now be tried under IPC Section 387 for extortion, according to a crime branch official.
The lawsuit stems from a complaint made by builder Kailash Agarwal, who is involved in a financial dispute with Hemant Banker’s son, who lives in Dubai (71). Bankar and his buddy Anant Shetty were arrested by the anti-extortion cell (AEC) in August 2021 for reportedly employing fugitive gangster Vijay Shetty to phone Agarwal and threaten him. The absconding suspects were proven to be the banker’s son and daughter-in-law.
The AEC invoked MCOCA in October 2021 because Shetty is a former member of the Chhota Rajan gang, who, together with deported mobster Santosh Shetty, helped Rajan escape from a Bangkok hospital after he was shot at by Dawood men in 2000.
Banker filed a petition with the Supreme Court in January this year. Banker’s lawyer, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, contended that the facts of the case were insufficient to apply the harsh Act. MCOCA’s earlier approval against Banker was suspended by the Supreme Court.
Later, Bankar contacted Pandey and said that he and his family had been falsely accused in the case. According to sources, Pandey confronted crime branch authorities over the lack of proof for invoking MCOCA, reasoning that Shetty contacted Agrawal since the police do not have his voice samples.
”Justice has triumphed,” said Ali Kaashif Khan, who represents the Bankers. We are grateful to the police chief for conducting a thorough and impartial investigation into the situation and dismissing the MCOCA sentence against my client.”
