BENGALURU: The High Court on Monday allowed the anticipatory bail plea of Prashanth Govindaraju in a case related to the conversion of currency notes post-demonetisation. Prashanth Govindaraju is said to be a relative of Chief Project Officer, Karnataka State Highways Development Project, S C Jayachandra, who is in judicial custody.
He was suspended after CBI registered an FIR on December 3 against him along with others for fraudulent conversion of currency.
The other accused are Suryanarayana Bairy, Chief Manager, Karnataka Bank Limited, Umashankar Renuka, Branch Manager, Dhanlaxmi Bank, Ibrahim Shereef, Chandrakanth Ramalingam, M/s Secure India Value India Limited and unknown others.
Govindaraju was accused of helping the other two accused Jayachandra and Ibrahim Shereef to exchange old currency notes with new ones.
Justice Rathnakala allowed the anticipatory bail plea of Govindaraju and asked him to furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and one surety for like sum. The judge also gave liberty to the CBI to seek the permission of the court within six months if they wanted the accused for custodial interrogation.
In the bail plea, the accused contended that the investigating agency may arrest him as it has already issued a notice to him despite his name was not mentioned in the remand application filed by the CBI before the Special Court.
In counter, the special public prosecutor P Prasanna Kumar argued that the statements of Jayachandra and Ibrahim Sheriff have been recorded. There is no chance of arresting Govindaraju at present. “The notice was issued to him and he may be required for further interrogation,” he added.