Stay on Ketan Mehta’s arrest

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked film maker Ketan Mehta to appear before the Crime Branch on March 4 and co-operate with the investigating agency probing a three-year-old cheating case against him.
Mehta and four others have been accused of defrauding the Prasar Bharati of more than Rs 12.10 crore. Justice R S Sodhi passed the order while putting a stay on a non-bailable warrant (NBW) issued against Mehta.Sodhi told Mehta’s advocate that the stay would remain till March 4.
Mehta had approached the high court against an NBW issued against him and four more persons in the cheating case. The state counsel V K Malik said:‘‘The accused were not appearing before the police despite several reminders.’’
The police, thereafter, filed an application before the court of metropolitan magistrate Digvinay Singh who issued the NBW against Mehta on October 14. While appearing on behalf of Mehta, Sandeep Sethi argued for the film-maker’s representative to appear before the police and answer their queries.
Sethi claimed the film-maker was busy with his schedules and prior commitments. As per the case registered against Mehta’s Maya Entertainment and four other companies, they had entered into a contract with Prasar Bharati for the telecast of Hindi films on 52 Saturdays on Doordarshan.
They submitted fixed deposits and bank guarantees of Rs 12.10 crore to Prasar Bharati. The bank guarantees belonged to a weak bank whose paid-up capital was even less than Rs 70 lakh. ‘‘The bank did not have such a huge amount as per the instructions issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The anticipatory bail application of one of the accused, Neelesh Dalal, has already been dismissed by the high court,’’ said Malik.