Fooled me twice, here’s your freedom

CHENNAI: If there is a survey done on the most common wedding gift, a wall clock is likely to top the charts. A white-collar criminal from Tamil Nadu has managed to get freedom as a gift for a wedding that never happened.

The 28-year-old son of the main suspect in the Chennai Port Trust scam, which unravelled a year ago, had moved the CBI court seeking bail citing that he was to get married. The CBI had filed a chargesheet against 18 suspects including a bank manager of Indian Bank in November 2021 for a financial fraud that caused a loss of Rs 45 crore to the bank.

The main suspects purchased over 230 acres of land in and around Tirunelveli, according to the CBI.

The wedding, however, did not happen and the suspects continued to be free. However, the man got greedy and attempted to abuse the freedom by moving the court again seeking to relax the condition of appearing before a judicial magistrate in his hometown, Tirunelveli.

An irate counsel of the CBI opposed it and registered his displeasure in strong words: “He should have been put behind bars after the marriage was cancelled. But, by fluke, he managed to remain out of person.”

The CBI court noted that the Madras High Court was kind enough to desist from cancelling his bail after the marriage got cancelled and denied the motion by the accused. Maybe, the judiciary’s favourite adage is ‘Fool me once; shame on you, fool me twice; shame on me’.

— Srikkanth Dhasarathy, Chennai