HC order gives relief to Sridevi

MUMBAI: Former big-screen diva Sridevi got some relief on Wednesday from the Bombay high court which put on hold proceedings against her in an alleged cheque-bouncing case filed by film financier Sushil Gupta. The actor had filed a criminal complaint against Gupta alleging that her signatures were forged on the cheques and on her letterhead. Observing that the two cases "overlapped on facts", the court directed the police to carry out a handwriting analysis to verify the authenticity of the signature on the cheques and first complete the probe into the more serious charge of forgery made by Sridevi. Justice A P Deshpande passed the order while hearing a petition filed by Sridevi seeking a stay on the criminal proceedings for cheque-bouncing, pending in the metropolitan magistrate's court, till her complaint was thoroughly probed first. She has three cases pending—two in Kurla court and one in Girgaum court—filed against her for allegedly issuing dud cheques for Rs 9 crore. The cheque-bouncing complaints against here were filed by G G Photo Limited owned by Sushil Gupta who also trades in raw stock. Sridevi's counsel in the HC, Amit Desai stated that the cheques in both cases were common. He said that for the last five months, the police had been dragging its feet and failed to take possession of the cheques from Gupta for a handwriting check to ascertain the signatures. He argued that when the police asked for the cheques last November, the accused refused to hand them over and now five months later the police still did not take any steps to get them "despite the seriousness of the forgery offence". Forgery attracts up to ten years in jail on conviction. Aabad Ponda, lawyer for the Guptas, raised technical grounds to oppose the plea for a stay on the cheque-bouncing case. He said, "These two transactions do not relate to the same offence and therefore there should be no stay." toireporter@timesgroup.com
THE TIMES OF INDIA; 27 Mar 2008, 0309 hrs IST , TNN