BENGALURU: In a classic case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire, a real estate agent who attempted to evade payment of income tax for 164 acres of land in connivance with his friend, ended up a victim of blackmail at the latter’s hands.
Shankar Shetti, in the real estate business for 15 years, handed over land ownership documents to his friend Janardhan, the first accused in the case, who is also in the real estate business, to evade income tax.
According to Sanjay Nagar police, the 164 acres of land had been purchased by Shetti’s family at Thondebhavi, near Doddaballapur in 2004. Five years later, Shetti faced problems related to income tax payment. At that time, he decided to entrust the original sale deed and other papers of the property to Janardhan’s custody.
A month later, Shetti asked Janardhan to return the documents. However, Janardhan and his wife allegedly started blackmailing Shetti stating that they will expose his ownership details and demanded a huge sum of money to keep mum.
Initially, Shetti gave them `42 lakh. However, the demands did not stop. The extortion continued over the subsequent years with Shetti paying Janardhan `1 crore, `6 lakh and `10 lakh on three more occasions. A total of `1.58 crore was to Janardhan in all.
But the blackmailing continued. Last month, Janardhan came to Shetti’s office and demanded `50 lakh more for the marriage ceremony of his son.
Unwilling to part with more money, Shetti warned Janardhan that he would file a police complaint against him.
Furious with Shetti’s response, Janardhan later visited Shetti’s residence and allegedly threatened the security personnel in the house, brandishing a pistol. Janardhan also threatened that he would kill Shetti.
Finally, Shetti decided to take recourse to law. He registered a complaint against Janardhan (51), his wife Shobha (50) and their son J Ganesh (19), residents of Jalahalli village, recently at Sanjay Nagar police station. They were all booked for offences punishable under Sections 504, 120(B), 506 (B), 384 and 406 read with 34 of IPC.
The 55th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, which heard the case recently, granted anticipatory bail to all the three accused. The public prosecutor resisted bail and appealed to the court to dismiss the petition. However, judge Kotrayya M Hiremath allowed the anticipatory bail applications.
“The truth, or otherwise, of the allegations made against the accused will come to light only after the completion of the trial. Therefore, at this moment, without expressing any opinion on the facts of the case, this court is of the opinion that there is no impediment to grant anticipatory bail to the accused”, the judge ruled.