Court dismisses Ravanan's bail petition

COIMBATORE/CHENNAI: The district judge court has dismissed the bail petition of Ravanan on Monday. The government pleaders have argued that the case is in the initial stage and police have planned to arrest two more persons in the case. Ravanan and his accomplices used a knife and other weapons against the complainant. The police want time to seize the weapons and feel that since he has political influence, he may tamper with the evidence.The Coimbatore crime branch police will take him under custody.
Senior advocate B Mohan, who appeared for Ravanan, claimed that he was innocent and had been implicated in false cases. Since police had already got his statement, they don't need to have custody of him, he reasoned. Principal district judge N Authinathan however dismissed the bail petition.
On January 27, Ravanan, a relative of Sasikalaa Natarajan, was arrested by Coimbatore crime branch police. He is being held under charges of wrongful confinement, extortion and kidnapping for ransom.
Meanwhile, an Alandur magistrate's court in Chennai on Monday allowed central crime branch (CCB) sleuths to take M R P Ravanan, a relative of chief minister J Jayalalithaa's former aide Sasikalaa Natarajan, into custody for three days to question him in a cheating case. The Coimbatore rural police had arrested Ravanan in another case on January 28.
Ravanan was brought to the court at 11am and the magistrate, Balasubramanian, postponed his verdict post-lunch. However, the case was dragged until 4pm and finally the magistrate gave his ruling.
Earlier, Ravanan's counsel filed a petition against granting police custody. "As police had questioned him earlier, there is no need to inquire him further. After the magistrate granted police to question him, I filed a petition requesting that one of his counsel be present with Ravanan during police inquiry. The magistrate dismissed the petition," counsel Ganesan said.
The CCB had booked Ravanan (52) and his associates Sathya and Raja on charges of cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal breach of trust based on a complaint from R Krishnamurthy, managing director of Tirupur-based R K Imay Property Developers' Pvt Ltd.
Krishnamurthy's complaint said he paid Ravanan Rs 1 crore for sand quarrying licences in the Tiruchi and Karur areas but that the latter failed to deliver and even threatened him with dire consequences when asked to return the money.
Ravanan was expelled from the AIADMK as part of a state-wide exercise to cleanse it of people considered close to Sasikalaa.