The BJP has suffered a huge embarrassment in Gujarat, where its State party chief Jitubhai Vaghani and his two business partners have been issued arrest warrants by a Mumbai court in a cheque bounce case.
The Gujarat DGP will execute a non-bailable warrant and send the three accused to the Mumbai court on May 2, according to information available here.
The case is over the bouncing of a ₹19-lakh cheque given by the Bhavnagar-based Eva Group of Companies, in which Vaghani is a partner. His two other partners are Bharat Patel and Sandip Soparia.
Eva had purchased land worth ₹10.85 crore in the upmarket Bandra area of Mumbai in an auction in August 2010. Later, the company resold the land to Novelty Power Infratech Company, which paid the first instalment of ₹3 crore to Eva.
However, when Eva failed to get title clearance for a long time, Novelty cancelled the deal. Following an agreement, Eva decided to refund the money along with interest and other expenses. But the cheque issued as the first instalment was dishonoured by the bank due to insufficient funds. Novelty then moved the Bandra magistrate court, which issued a warrant against Vaghani and his partners.
Vaghani told reporters here the move was “politically motivated”. Earlier, BJP spokesman Bharat Pandya claimed Vaghani had transferred ₹19 lakh to the company through RTGS, although Vaghani himself kept mum on this. “Some interested parties suppressed the facts about his making the payment and misused social media to defame Vaghani and the BJP,” Pandya added.