Kahlon granted conditional bail

RPS Kahlon, chairman of the Kolkata Port Trust, was granted conditional bail when produced before the Bankshall Court on Monday.

It may be recalled that the Special Task Force (STF) of the Kolkata Police had arrested Kahlon from a five star hotel at Esplanade on charges of taking bribe on March 9. He was caught along with DD Jagtap Dattaji director of Bharat Calcutta Containers Terminal Limited when the latter had allegedly given him a bribe of Rs 20 lakh. 

The next day of his arrest police had recovered Rs15 lakh more in connection with the alleged bribery case.

Kahlon has been directed to appear before the Court after every 15 days. The Court has also directed him to deposit his passport.

The Port Trust chairman was sent into the custody of the police when produced before the court on March 10 and he was remanded in the judicial custody on March 17.

On March 10, Kahlon had claimed that he was being farmed as he had involved in the dispute of the P-51 land. It may be mentioned that a production house was evicted from a plot at P-51 Hyde Road Extention in September 2015 following a dispute between the Kolkata Port Trust and the production house.

Kahlon’s counsel had been pleading for the bail submitting that the police have no proof to establish that the chairman of the Port Trust was taking bribe. 

But the bail plea was turned down as the state’s counsel had pleaded before the Court that the police wants to interrogate him. 

Later on March 17 when he was again produced before the Court, Kahlon’s counsel had once again pleaded for the bail stating that his client is an IAS officer and there was not a single allegation against him in the past 36 years of his service. 

The state’s counsel had objected the bail plea and submitted that both Kahlon and Dattaji is “influential” person and the investigation may get affected if they get bail.