NIA moves Bombay HC against special court order granting bail to bookie

The National Investigation Agency NIA on Friday moved the Bombay High Court challenging a special courts order granting bail to cricket bookie Naresh Gaur an accused in the Antilia bomb scare case and killing of businessman Mansukh HiranA special NIA court granted bail to Gaur on November 20 but he continues to be in in jail as the court stayed its order for a period of 25 daysEarlier this week a single bench of the High Court set aside the stay order noting that a sessions court judge does not have the power to stay his own orderThe probe agency in its appeal said the present case was a ldquoterror crimerdquo and was committed with an intent to strike terror among peopleOn Friday the NIAs advocate Sandesh Patil sought that the division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal must grant a stay on the single benchs order so that Gaur can remain in jailPatil informed the court that Gaur has filed an application before the special NIA court seeking permission to submit temporary cash surety instead of bondAlso read Antilia bomb scare case Bookie Naresh Gaur moves Bombay HC challenging special courts stay on bail orderThe application is to be heard on Friday the lawyer said adding that pending hearing of the NIA appeal his Gaur release should be stayedGaurs advocates Shirish Gupte and Aniket Nikam however argued that he Gaur has been in jail despite being granted bail on meritsldquoLet him be released He will surrender if the NIAs appeal against the bail order is allowedrdquo Gupte told the courtThe bench said it would start hearing the appeal from December 15 on meritsGupte then assured the court that till then they would not press for the special NIA court to hear their application for submission of temporary cash suretyThe NIA had arrested Gaur in March this year accusing him of being involved in the Antilia bomb scare case and in the killing of businessman Mansukh HiranAccording to the NIA Gaur had provided SIM cards to the coaccused in the caseThe agency in its appeal in the High Court claimed that Gaur and the other accused in the case including dismissed cop Sachin Waze had parked an explosiveladen vehicle outside the Antilia building residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambani and thereafter killed Hiran owner of the vehicle with an intent to strike terror in the section of people residing in the arealdquoThe present crime involves the serious and heinous offence of murder which is the culmination of the conspiracy of planting of explosives near Antilia and threat to the Ambani family This was an act of terrorrdquo the NIA claimed in its appealThe special court had erred in appreciating the prima facie evidence available against Gaur in the case the appeal statedldquoThe special court has passed an erroneous order and gone into the question of accused Naresh Gaur allegedly not having active knowledge of conspiracy in this caserdquo it saidldquoGaur was fully aware that the SIM cards he was providing were to be used for extorting money and to commit criminal offencesrdquo the NIA allegedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever