No stay on govt order for seizing Dawood's kins' properties
The Delhi High Court has refused to stay its single-judge bench order upholding the Centre's decision to forfeit the properties of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's mother Amina Bi and his sister Hasina Ibrahim Parker.
Refusing to grant any interim stay on the government's order on, a division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna fixed August 16 to hear their plea.
Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw earlier on July 15 had rejected the joint plea of Dawood's mother and sister against the Centre's order to confiscate their properties in Mumbai by August 14.
While pleading to the division bench to stay the Centre's order, Parker's counsel Bahar-U Burqui argued that Justice Endlaw had earlier upheld the Centre's order wrongly saying that he (counsel) had misled the court.
Burqui argued that the matter was initially heard by Justice S Muralidhar elaborately, but before he could complete the hearing, the court's roaster got changed and the matter was assigned to Justice Endlaw.
Countering Burqui's argument, Centre's counsel Jatan Singh cited Justice Muralidhar's May 2 order, which, he said, had clearly stated that the matter could not be treated as substantially or even partly heard by him.
Accepting Singh's argument, the division bench rejected the plea for stay on the Center's order which has proposed to forfeit Dawood's kins' properties by August 14.
In all there are seven residential properties in their name. Of this, two are in the mother's name and five with the sister worth crores of rupees which Government believes were acquired with Dawood's ill-gotten wealth.
