MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday rejected the application of a Singaporean national accused of cheating a city-based businessman of ₹3.25 crore to travel back home temporarily for his daughter’s jaw surgery.
A vacation bench of justices Neela Gokhale and Firdosh P Pooniwalla noted that the investigation is likely to be completed soon, and there was no urgency to travel as the petitioner’s daughter was undergoing an elective surgery. The bench listed the next hearing on July 4.
Hem Prabhaker Shah, a Singaporean national of Indian origin, is accused of cheating Sharadkumar Kejariwal, a Mumbai-based businessman, to the tune of ₹3.25 crore. In September 2019, he was charged with offences punishable under section 420 (cheating) read with section 34 (shared intention among the accused to commit the crime) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Shah was subsequently declared an absconder, with the Maharashtra government issuing a look-out circular (LOC) against him in December 2019. He was finally detained by immigration officers in August 2024, when he landed in Ahmedabad on a flight from Singapore.
Shah recently approached the Bombay high court requesting permission to travel to Singapore for his 22-year-old daughter’s jaw surgery. However, public prosecutor Gauri Rao urged the court to turn down the request, arguing that the investigation is likely to be concluded within 30 days.
Rao further submitted that Shah has not cooperated with the investigation and did not provide his bank statement to the investigators when asked. However, advocate Kushal More, representing Shah, told the court that he had submitted the bank statement for the relevant period.
The court rejected Shah’s travel application, citing the gravity of the crime. “Being a foreign national, his return cannot be enforced easily. Neither does he have immediate family roots in India,” the bench said. It also noted that Shah’s need to travel to Singapore was not urgent as his daughter’s surgery was an elective one, and his wife and the other daughter are already in Singapore to assist her. The court added that since the investigation is likely to be concluded within 30 days, Shah can file another travel application once it’s concluded.
Earlier, in a different petition, Shah had argued that when he was detained in Ahmedabad last year, he was not aware that an FIR had been registered against him. He also claimed that although the FIR against him was registered four years ago, the police made no efforts to contact him before his detention at the airport.
In September 2024, a division bench of justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande had declared his arrest illegal for flagrant violation of Section 50 (informing person to be arrested about grounds of arrest) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and Article 22 (1) (protection against arrest and detention in certain cases) of the Constitution.