The Bombay High Court on Monday said it was quashing the First Information Report (FIR) against Mamta Kulkarni due to lack of evidence. The court is yet to take a detailed decision but said Mamta Kulkarni’s plea to quash the case will be accepted. Kulkarni had alleged in court that she had been made a “scapegoat in the drug scam”. Hearing her plea, a bench comprising Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande observed that there was no evidence against her apart from the allegations in the complaint.
In April 2016, Thane police raided Avon Lifesciences Ltd, a pharmaceutical company based in Solapur, and arrested at least 14 people. Police suspected that the accused had planned to procure ephedrine, a controlled substance, that can be abused to make the party drug meth, from Avon Lifesciences Limited. The ephedrine was to be diverted to Kenya, where it would allegedly be used to manufacture meth to be sold in the US market.
The police chargesheet names five other people as wanted accused, including alleged drug lord Vicky Goswami, Kulkarni’s partner who is believed to be the mastermind of the drug trade. According to police, Kulkarni lived with Goswami in Kenya.
Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had alleged that Kulkarni, who lived with Goswami in Kenya, was also involved in the drug trade. Police said Kulkarni attended an important meeting of Goswami and his aides at Hotel Bliss in Kenya on January 8, 2016, where the details of the use of the ephedrine from Solapur were discussed.
At the first press conference held by Thane Police on April 27, 2016, it was mentioned that Kulkarni was present at a meeting at Hotel Bliss. In a press conference on June 18, 2016, the police said that an attempt was made to make Kulkarni one of the directors of Avon Lifesciences by transferring shares in her name at a cheap rate.
The fourth and final chargesheet in the case against Goswami and Kulkarni did not contain any evidence of the meeting or the share transfer. The police primarily relied only on the statement of a co-accused before a magistrate to prove her involvement in the case. After co-accused Jay Mukhi’s statement was recorded before a magistrate in July 2016 and landed Kulkarni in trouble, he applied to withdraw the statement, claiming that it was made under duress.
Soon after the case broke, Goswami was arrested by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2017 and is in the custody of the US authorities. The other arrested accused are in Thane jail awaiting trial.
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