Madurai
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday refused to grant bail to Inspector of Customs Dharmendra Singh, an accused in the Tiruchi airport gold smuggling case. He was alleged to have acted as the facilitator.
Justice B. Pugalendhi took serious note of the nature of offence that involved a government servant and refused to grant bail. The counsel for the petitioner Dharmendra Singh chose to withdraw the bail petition. The petition was dismissed as withdrawn.
Earlier, the court granted bail to seven accused in the gold smuggling case taking note of the fact that the men had only acted as carriers. The court said that the main accused are yet to be apprehended.
The court granted bail to the seven accused: Abdulkayuom, Syed Mohammed Buhari, Gopi, Manikandan, Rizwan Mohamed, Selvakumar and Vijay. Taking into account the fact that the Inspector of Customs was a facilitator he was named as an accused in the case.
Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Tiruchi, arrested the accused for trying to smuggle gold into India. They had not made a declaration or paid customs duty after arriving from Sharjah. Several kilograms of gold was recovered from the accused.
It is alleged that Dharmendra Singh facilitated the accused to clear the concealed goods without declaring to the customs and without payment of duty. It is said that he was frequently communicating with the accused at the time of the incident. The other accused had admitted to the same during the inquiry.
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