Mumbai: Chintan Upadhyay's brother to deposit his defunct notes in bank

Chintan is accused of plotting his wife Hema's murder

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday allowed artist Chintan Upadhyay to give power of attorney to his brother, to deposit old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in a bank account in New Delhi.

On hold for months
Chintan, who is behind the bars for allegedly plotting the murder of his wife Hema Upadhyay, and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, had moved an application before a judge in Dindoshi court on December 9 to deposit old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 lying in his HDFC bank locker in New Delhi's Malaviya Nagar.

The court had, however, failed to decide on the application as special public prosecutor in the case, Ujjwal Nikam, was unavailable. The investigating officer had claimed that Chintan might destroy evidence lying in the locker through his brother Yatin, who will be given the power of attorney. Chintan had even volunteered to pay the travel expenses of the police team to take the cash from the locker and deposit it in his bank account before December 31. But the application was not decided due to one or the other reason.

HC intervenes
Chintan on Wednesday approached the bench of Justices Ranjit More and Revati Mohite Dere.

His counsel Bharat Manghani told the bench that the application was made in time on December 9 and is still pending in Dindoshi court. Chintan was even ready to take a team of police officers to Delhi if they wanted to check the locker. He just wanted to deposit the old notes in the bank.

The bench finally directed the police to take Chintan to Thane Court on Friday, where he should give power of attorney to his brother Yatin to operate the HDFC bank account and locker.

"The Dindoshi court should have well decided the application in time," observed Justice More.

"Yatin will take the cash from Chintan's locker and deposit it in his bank account or RBI, as the case may be," said Manghani.