A court in Delhi on Saturday granted bail to Navneet Kalra, the owner of Delhi’s Khan Chacha restaurant chain, in the oxygen concentrator black-marketing case.
While granting bail to Kalra, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg said that the accused must not contact the customers to whom he claimed to have sold the concentrators. Kalra was also directed to not tamper with evidence or influence the witnesses, and join the investigation as and when called by the police, reported news agency PTI.
The Delhi Police had busted an oxygen concentrator racket earlier this month after they recovered more than 500 oxygen concentrators and other medical equipment from multiple locations including bars and restaurants in south Delhi.
The discovery of a large number of oxygen concentrators from Khan Chacha restaurant right in the midst of a deadly pandemic had prompted Hindutva supporters to link the racket to the Muslim community. However, the bigots were left red-faced after it emerged that the owner of Khan Chacha restaurants was one Navneet Kalra.
Sharing the video of their raids, the Delhi Police had tweeted, “BIGGEST HAUL | 419 #OxygenConcentrators seized by @DCPSouthDelhi #DelhiPolice PS Lodhi cly team from restaurant & bar Nege Ju and a south delhi farmhouse in raid on #hoarding #blackmarketing Were criminally profiteering by selling at 3 & half time rates to needy ppl. 4 arrested.”
Kalra had gone underground but was nabbed by the Delhi Police on 16 May from Gurgaon. He was produced before a Delhi court, which later sent him to judicial custody till 3 June.
The Delhi Police said during the argument that Kalra indulged in black-marketing of critical medical equipment, adding that the businessman committed a white-collar crime and made a profit by selling medical devices at an exorbitant price to those on death beds.
The discovery of hundreds of oxygen concentrators from premises owned by Kalra was made just when scores died in Delhi every day for the lack of access to oxygen.