High Court rejects bail plea of Haldiram owner

A division bench presided by Justice D P Sengupta rejected the bail prayer of Agarwal, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a city sessions court on January 29, along with four others.

Pramod Sharma, the nephew of the owner of the tea shop, which was reportedly blocking the view of the entrance of an upmarket food plaza of Agarwal at Nandram Bose Road in Burrabazar area here, was shot at on March 30, 2005. Sharma was shot in the leg by henchmen of Agarwal and was seriously injured.

Agarwal's counsel claimed before the bench that the land in question was in confectionery owner's possession since 1996 and there was no question of him conspiring to kill the tea stall owner Satyanarayan Sharma or making an attempt on the life of his nephew.
They also submitted that Agarwal, who owned business running into hundreds of crores in the city and elsewhere, would not abscond.

Judge Tapan Sen of Bankshall court had on January 30 awarded life sentence to Agarwal, history-sheeter Gopal Tiwari and his henchmen Arun Khandelwal, Manoj Sharma and Raju Sonkar under Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) IPC besides 10 years rigorous prison term under section 307/34 (attempt to murder/ common intention).

Tiwari was also found guilty under the Arms Act and sentenced to seven years in one section and three years in another.  All the sentences would run concurrently, the judge had said in his order. Agarwal, owner of the multi-crore food and confectionery chain which has outlets in many cities and also in London, had failed to persuade the tea stall owner to move out of the shop which was allegedly spoiling the facade of the food plaza he was constructing.