Stating that the Customs Act doesn’t have any provision for leniency if smuggled items should not seized from an arrested particular person, a particular Justice of the Peace’s court docket for financial offences in Bengaluru rejected the bail plea of hawala seller Sahil Sakariya Jain on Tuesday citing his earlier file.
Jain, 26, is accused of serving to Kannada movie actress Ranya Rao, 33, in disposing of 49.6 kg of smuggled gold, price Rs 40.13 crore, from November 2024 to February 2025. The particular court docket dominated that failure to grab gold from the hawala seller shouldn’t be a sound motive to grant him bail.
Jain was arrested on March 26 by the Directorate of Income Intelligence (DRI) after he was recognized because the supposed recipient of 14.2 kg of gold smuggled from Dubai by Ranya Rao in affiliation with Telugu actor Tarun Konduru Raju. The actress was arrested at Bengaluru Worldwide Airport on March 3 following her arrival from Dubai with the gold valued at Rs 12.56 crore.
“On total examination of the case papers, it transpires that, the investigation is below progress and the allegations in opposition to the accused No.3 (Sahil Jain) is severe in nature as to having assisted and abetted the accused No.1 (Ranya Rao), by facilitating Hawala transactions for transferring of monies in order to allow unlawful smuggling of the gold into India weighing 1,4213.05 grams of gold, although he had information as to the stated act being opposite to the Customs Act, at this stage inclines the court docket to assemble the existence of culpable psychological state U/s 138A of the Act,” the particular court docket dominated.
The court docket dominated that Jain’s position in disposing of the smuggled gold on the behest of Ranya Rao, transferring Rs 39.39 crore of the earnings to Dubai through the hawala route and his historical past of receiving smuggled gold, as alleged by the DRI, are all components that led to the denial of bail.
The argument that Jain who was not caught “with contraband in his possession can’t be introduced inside the ambit of Part 135(1)(a) & (b) of the Customs Act is untenable” because the regulation says that any particular person concerned “in every other method, coping with items, which he is aware of or has motive to imagine are liable to confiscation U/s.111 or Part 113,” the court docket stated.
The court docket indicated that the DRI had discovered Jain to be a part of a classy smuggling community working in India and overseas.
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DRI counsel Madhu N Rao had earlier advised the court docket that Jain was a key participant within the gold smuggling racket in Bengaluru which has emerged following the arrest of the actress.
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