Four given bail in O2 concentrator ‘fraud’

New Delhi: Merely booking manufacturers or importers under criminal law without a regulatory regime in place will be counter-productive, observed a court on Wednesday while granting

bail

to four persons, including Matrix Cellular CEO Gaurav Khanna, in a case of alleged hoarding and black marketing of

oxygen concentrators

in the national capital.

Chief metropolitan magistrate Arun Kumar Garg said that despite repeated directions by Delhi High Court, the government hadn’t capped the price of essential medical devices. “Nor any regulation has been made by the government for sale of the same by the importers to the government for its equitable distribution to the needy persons for reasons best known to the government,” the bail order stated.

Accordingly, bails were granted to Khanna, Gaurav Suri, Satish Sethi and Vikrant, lodged in judicial custody in the case being investigated by Delhi Police’s Crime Branch. For Khanna, senior advocate Trideep Pais and advocate Samudra Sarangi had relied upon a number of invoices demonstrating sale and purchase of the equipment by Matrix Cellular.

The order also highlighted that merely booking of the manufacturers or importers without any evidence and only to show that the state is concerned about its citizens in procurement of life-saving devices would be counter-productive. “It shall create further scarcity of already scarce medical devices as it will discourage the manufacturers and importers from pushing their resources” into procuring essential devices for needy people, it added.

The court, however, clarified that its observations should not be construed as any sympathy for the black marketers and hoarders. “However, the vacuum in the law needs to be filled up by the legislature or for that matter by the executive by issuing appropriate regulations.”

The court said it “is also unable to comprehend as to why the provisions of Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980 are not being invoked by the state” if it wanted to stop black marketing.

As the investigating officer (IO) of the case referred to a statement of a person who, police claimed, has been cheated by the accused, the judge said, “Even as per the said statement, in my considered opinion, at best a case of breach of contract is made out and no prima facie case for cheating under Section 420 IPC... more so when the allegations are specifically against co-accused Navneet Kalra”.

Against all four persons, the court found no prima facie case of criminal conspiracy and cheating. The investigating officer, however, claimed more victims might come forward, prompting the judge to make it clear that “the IO is free to continue the investigation... without being influenced by the aforesaid observations, which only record the opinion of this court at this stage based on the material collected by the IO”.

The court noted that the officer had looked for notifications to determine whether oxygen concentrators were essential commodities, meaning Section 3/7 of Essential Commodities Act was invoked in the FIR without the IO being sure about the existence of any such notification. “Once again, such an approach on the part of police to book a person first and to look for the law later on can’t at all be appreciated particularly when it amounts to curtailment of the fundamental right of liberty of a citizen,” the court underlined.

The bail plea of Hitesh, a manager of Townhall restaurant, will be decided on Thursday.