Etah court cancels anticipatory bail plea of Salman Khurshid's wife

AGRA: On Thursday, Etah district court cancelled the anticipatory bail plea of former Union minister Salman Khurshid’s wife, Louise and her associate Athar Farooqi , who had approached the court on October 1 seeking protection from arrest in a nine-year-old case pertaining to alleged misappropriation of central government funds meant for disabled persons.

The bail plea was cancelled by the court of additional session judge I, Ashok Kumar Navam.

Etah district government counsel, Vinod Pachauri, said, “Since 2017, Louise and her associate Athar Farooqi have been trying to avoid arrest. On June 21 this year, a police team even conducted raid at her residence, she was not found. A strong argument quoting list of fake beneficiaries was put forward to the additional session judge court to ensure that anticipatory bail plea of the duo is rejected.”

He said, “In 2017, a total of 17 FIRs were registered by the economic offences wing of UP Police against the Congress veteran’s wife in various districts. The case is regarding swindling of Rs 71.50 lakh in government funds by Louise, as the project director of her husband’s NGO (Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust), and Athar Farooqi, the secretary of the trust. The money was granted to the NGO on March 30, 2010 by the ministry of social justice and empowerment for distribution of wheelchairs and other equipment to disabled persons across UP.”

On July 29, 2011 an inquiry revealed that the money allocated to the NGO was never disbursed to the intended 192 beneficiaries.

"In Etah’s Aliganj, EOW investigation officer Ramshankar Yadav had lodged an FIR against Louise’s associate Pratanyshu Shukla, the representative of trust, for forging the signatures of Aliganj tehsildar and Etah chief medical officer to show that equipment worth around Rs 6 lakh were given to disabled persons in a camp organised at Jaithra in May 5, 2010, which never happened. Later, on March 22, 2017 Pratanyshu died, but the EOW investigation found that Louise and Athar Farooqi were behind the scam,” he added, citing the investigation documents.

In Etah, the EOW charged the accused under IPC Sections 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document) and 120 B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy).

According to probe documents, the EOW had raised serious allegations and questioned Louise and Athar, that when Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment granted Rs 71.50 lakh to the trust, why there were bills for Rs 77.87 lakh expenditure? Further, the EOW in its June 12, 2015 letter asked the trust, when central wired the funds on March 30, 2010, how come the trust organised camps for handicapped people in January month of 2010 in Siddharthnagar, Bareilly , Shahjahanpur .

Notably, the UP government had on January 12, 2012 ordered a state-wide probe into the malpractices in a project piloted by the trust.