PUNE: The court of special judge D G Murumkar on Tuesday rejected the bail pleas of Kedar Vanjape and his wife, Sai, who are among the 14 persons arrested so far in the alleged Rs 2,091.11 crore economic fraud by developer D S Kulkarni alias DSK and his group of companies.On August 10, the economic offences wing of the city police had filed a supplementary chargesheet against the Vanjape couple and four others. Kedar, who held the position of an executive director and head, legal and planning, in the DSK group , is the son-in-law of the developer’s brother, Prakash Kulkarni . He and Sai were arrested on May 16, a day before the city police filed the first chargesheet in the case.Special public prosecutor Pravin Chavan told TOI, “The court rejected the bail pleas primarily considering the larger conspiracy of siphoning off public money and the statements recorded by some of the key witnesses.” The couple’s lawyer, Prasad Kulkarni, said, “We now have the option of moving the Bombay high court against the trial court’s order.”Chavan said, “We argued before the court that Kedar was handling most of the land deals and particularly, the Phursungi land deal, in which Rs184.45 crore of DSK Developers Limited (DSKDL) was misappropriated by purchasing lands from farmers in the name of his wife (Sai), relatives and other associates and later selling them at a much higher rate to DSKDL. Kedar is also one of the conspirators in the misappropriation of Rs1,083 crore raised through the depositors.”He said, “Police had seized a laptop from Kedar and it led them to recovery of several incriminating documents related to fraudulent transactions. We argued that there is a strong case about the couple’s involvement in the fraud, money was transferred in their accounts and the social impact of the fraud cannot be overlooked. If released on bail, they can pressurise witnesses.”Lawyer Kulkarni had argued that Kedar was a salaried executive director in the group and was merely executing the company board’s decisions. Moreover, Kedar had left the group in 2009 and the alleged fraud occurred after 2013. In case of Sai, he argued that though land was purchased in her name, she was not a beneficiary nor had received any money.

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