Avinash Bhosale’s counsel responds to court notice

The third magistrate’s court at Esplanade on Thursday heard the responses of counsel for Avinash Bhosale who was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Sunday for failing to declare ‘dutiable goods’ while returning from a trip to London.

Bhosale had been granted bail by a night magistrate the same day on the argument offered by his lawyers, indicating that the DRI had refused to accept service of the notice for the bail hearing.

The DRI had informed the magistrate on Tuesday that none of the three officials (customs and DRI) named on Monday in the remand application of the DRI were personally served notices the previous day regarding the bail hearing and hence were unable to be present before the holiday magistrate.

The third magistrate’s court had issued notices to the counsel for Bhosale and also to him following this. Bhosale’s lawyer Abad Ponda told the magistrate that he was the counsel on the day of the bail application adding that he had not personally sought to serve the notice of the hearing upon the DRI officials. He sought to be discharged from the case while issuing an undertaking to make himself available to the court in order to assist it.

The other lawyer, Ranjit Pawar and Bhosale, on behalf of whom Satish Maneshinde and AV Desai appeared respectively, have been give time till June 14 to submit replies to the notice issued by the court.

Assistant police inspector BK Desai from the Azad Maidan police lock-up also submitted his reply to the notice today. Meanwhile, Bhosale duly arrived at the DRI office at 11.30am and was questioned till 3 pm and permitted to leave. Following a search operation launched by the DRI in the residence, a hotel and office premises owned by Bhosale.