A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Thursday called for a fresh report from Taloja prison to apprise it of the overall condition of the prison in context of the coronavirus pandemic as well as the number of infected inmates and deaths caused by the virus in the prison.
The court was to hear the interim bail plea of former MD of IL&FS Transportation Networks (ITNL) Ramchand Karunakaran on Thursday. It had last month called for a report on the 70-year-old’s medical condition and vulnerabilities in the context of the pandemic on the request of his advocate Abad Ponda. Advocate Ponda had also sought last month that the court call for an overall report on the condition in Taloja prison where Karunakaran is lodged, in the context of the pandemic, including the number of inmates infected and deaths caused. The court had called for such a report on June 25.
The report submitted by the jail superintendent of the prison in court on July 9 however, did not mention anything on the condition in prison nor the number of those infected by the virus, but informed the court only of the medical condition of Karunakaran.
On Thursday, advocate Ponda brought this to the attention of the court and the court called for a fresh report from the jail authorities to apprise it of the condition in Taloja prison in the context of the pandemic as well as the statistics of infections and deaths.
A temporary bail plea filed by Karunakaran earlier had been rejected in April-mid by the court.
According to the Enforcement Directorate, senior management of IL&FS had for personal gain sanctioned and disbursed huge loans to companies that were not financially sound and had already failed to repay loans taken earlier from its subsidiary IL&FS Financial Services Limited (IFIN). The accounts had been falsified so as not to reflect on the balance sheet.
