Mumbai: Khar resident Hiren Bhagat alias Romi Bhagat, who is accused of demanding Rs10 crore to protect Cox and Kings promoter Peter Kerkar in the money laundering case, has moved a bail plea. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been probing involvement of Bhagat in channeling dirty money. Bhagat's lawyers pointed out that the case has been registered almost after four years of alleged extortion demand.
He claimed that the case registered against him on the complaint of Ajit Kerkar, Peter's father, was a bid to implicate him. “The credibility of the complainant is questionable from the fact that his son, who is in jail since 2020, was instrumental in executing and giving effect to a large- scale scam which involved siphoning of hundreds of crores of from his company, M/s Cox and Kings Ltd,” Bhagat said in his bail plea filed through his lawyers Jugal Kanani and Aabad Ponda.
It is claimed that Bhagat got acquainted with Peter's father only during the probe of the Cox and Kings case. He claimed that the father has filed the case only to create a false story and wrongly implicate him to use it in their favor in the pending proceedings. “The complainant has literally woken up from his slumber at 1am in the night after lapse of four years to register the case. This is highly suspicious,” read the bail plea.
The ED opposed the application, saying that it's “a wider conspiracy hatched between Peter and Bhagat to derail the investigation and dissipate the proceeds of crime.”
