Margao based businessman claims false case of kidnapping against him

Margao based businessman claims false case of kidnapping against him
MARGAO: Margao based businessman Ruben Vernekar and his advocate refuted allegations of kidnapping that were made against him and instead accused the complainant in the case of orchestrating the kidnapping to blame him and avoid repaying the Rs 3-crore that he owes him on account of a agreement to sell a shop.

Addressing the media, Advocate Kapil Vernekar, who represented Ruben, said that the alleged kidnapping was manufactured because Ruben has been seeking the Rs 3-crore that was paid in exchange for the shop to be repaid to him.

“There was an agreement between Ruben Vernekar and the complainant that they were to sell their shop to him and the price was agreed upon. They sought Rs 3-crores which was paid to them, cheque payments, acknowledgements and receipts are with us. And now, when we are asking them to do the sale deed, they are delaying and postponing and till date the sale deed has not been signed and when we asked for the money back, they orchestrated the incident — to portray my client as a criminal and they wanted to defraud my client of that money,” Adv Kapil Vernekar said.

“Ruben is a very reputed businessman, and a person with no criminal antecedents whatsoever. He has a business standing and a repute in the market, with no criminal antecedents. And his family for the past 40 years is in the goldsmith business and his father and he have a standing in Margao. A false accusation has been made against this individual by another family in the goldsmith business — the complainant alleged that Ruben, at gunpoint attempted to abduct him, when the complainant was dropping his child off to school and that Reuben was the mastermind behind this,” Adv Kapil added.

“The police interrogated him continuously for three days, by the PI, DySP, SP and we have continuously told them that we have nothing to do with this incident and that they should check whether this incident actually took place or was orchestrated. Importantly, that magazine of the gun that was used in the threatening to abduct, was not recovered from the scene by the police, but was taken to the police by the complainant itself. Under any crime, a scene of offence punchnama needs to be done. Recovery, panchanama needs to be done, there needs to be witnesses. This magazine and the version of events is only based on the complainant’s narration. There is no evidence,” he said.

“Instead of selling his shop to us, he has sold part of this shop to another person and this sale deed copy is with us. Appropriate FIR involving various offences against the client, for dishonesty… this is a direct case of cheating, fraud, dishonest disposition of property, criminal breach of trust and criminal intimidation to my client when he went to request to execute the sale deed,” he said.

Ruben himself, who was present, said that he agreed to buy the shop only because the seller was begging him to buy it, since he was in debt and wanted to pay back his creditors. “We arrived at an agreed amount, which was paid to him and now when we went to execute the sale deed, the seller has been postponing which has caused me much hardship, mental and economic agony and caused substantial loss,” he said.

“When this was registered, we were shocked and they approached the sessions court for anticipatory bail. The court was pleased to reject only on technical grounds — that they had no reason to believe that Ruben Vernekar has any role in this and as such he is not facing any threat of arrest. Since there is no apprehension of arrest they technically dismissed his anticipatory bail application. But we were apprehensive that due to political pressure, he could be arrested. So we have also made a full attempt to go to the HC with an application for anticipatory bail,” Adv Kapil said.

“Proceedings for FIR (against the present complainant) are already instituted before the police. Appropriate civil action for recovery and specific performance is also on their way. For the sake of Rs 3-crore this false accusation has been brought against my client,” Adv Kapil added.