Heera Group’s Nowhera Shaik Granted Conditional Bail in Cheating Case

Hyderabad: Much to the anger and dismay of some investors, the Metropolitan Sessions Court of Nampally in Hyderabad granted a conditional bail to Heera Group’s Chairman Nowhera Shaik on Wednesday in the alleged cheating case. The court asked Shaik to surrender her passport and deposit Rs 5 crore as surety by October 29. She was released on bail after giving a surety of Rs 5 lakh to the court.

The Central Crime Station (CCS) division of the Telangana police had arrested Shaik on October 15 in Delhi and later brought to Hyderabad for allegedly cheating investors in her companies. The CCS had booked her for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal intimidation and various sections of the Telangana Deposits of Financial Establishment Act and the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act.

Shaik was able to secure the bail, as the police failed to convince the court that the allegations levelled against her were indeed true.

The judge asked the police to show prima facie evidence that Heera Group had defaulted payment of dividends. “Is there any proof to show that the dividends were not paid to the investors for the past one year?” the judge had asked the prosecutor, reported Times of India.

The court also reprimanded the police for booking a case under Telangana Deposits of Financial Establishment Act and Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme against Heera Group, which is a public limited company, registered under the Registrar of Companies Act.

Nowhera Shaik’s lawyer Vineet Dhanda argued that, the case against his client was an act of political vendetta, as she had launched a political party called the All India Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP), and that her opponents were scared of her popularity. Shaik had recently announced that her party will contest all 119 seats in the upcoming Telangana Legislative Assembly elections 2018.

Investors in the company have staged multiple protests against Shaik and her company, for defaulting on monthly payments and change in payout dates. The company is alleged to have lost large sums of money in the Karnataka elections, where Shaik’s MEP party made its political debut, which allegedly triggered panic among the company’s investors.