Pramesh S Jain
The special court of economic offences on Wednesday rejected the bail application of Tarun Raju,arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in the gold smuggling case involving Kannada actor Ranya Rao.
Judge,Vishwanath Channabasappa Gowdar while rejected the bail application filed by Tarun Konduru Raju, 30,named accused 2 in the case after considering the objection of DRI that granting him bail would hamper the course of investigation and posted the next hearing to March 24.
Tarun Raju was arrested by the DRI on March 9 based on the call record details and laptop analysis reports of Ranya Rao.
Raju,a relative of a star hotel in Bengaluru,roped in Ranya to smuggle gold from Dubai frequently .
Ranya was arrested by the DRI on March 3 at the Bengaluru airport after she flew into the city from Dubai.
According to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI),she was found carrying 14.2 kg of foreign-origin gold bars worth ₹12.56 crore wrapped in her thighs using a crape bandage and tape.
She used special privilege and protocol of her step father,Ramachandra Rao,DGP and heading police housing corporation.
The probe conducted by Gaurav Gupta found Rao had violated the protocol to facilitate Ranya Rao.
While rejecting the bail application,the court noted that allegations against Raju of helping Ranya in her smuggling attempts violated the Customs Act.
DRI had vehemently argued against granting bail to Tarun.As part of their objections submitted before the court, the DRI had noted that the two were close associates and part of the racket .
The DRI had submitted that Raju had used his US citizenship to declare the gold in Dubai to Geneva in Switzerland but then handed it over to Ranya to smuggled it to India.
The DRI also submitted that Raju had attempted to flee after Ranya’s arrest and was a possible flight risk if granted bail.
The court observed that Tarun misused his privilege, similar to Ranya who possessed a resident identity card of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Meanwhile the city civil and sessions court on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of the bail petition filed by Ranya to Friday,March 21 after the respondent DRI sought time to file its objection .
Ranya had moved to the the sessions court after her bail plea was rejected by the Special Court for Economic Offences.
