Peter Mukerjea’s custody extended till November 30

Even as the metropolitan magistrate court extended Peter Mukerjea’s CBI custody till November 30 in the Sheena Bora murder case, it did not rule out the possibility of the motive for murder being the financial trail in the case.

The CBI said it needed time to investigate as it had sought Interpol’s help to get a report of the international bank transaction pertaining to the case. Meanwhile, Peter’s son, Rahul Mukerjea was upset and said the information regarding this father was false.

“Every allegation against my father is totally wrong. He is not involved in anything,” said an upset Rahul after hearing the allegations.

During investigation, CBI officers came to know that Indrani has opened a bank account in Sheena Bora’s name in HSBC Bank Singapore with the help of friend Gayatri Ahuja, who was a DBS Bank employee. This information was received from Peter as well as Indrani’s statement.

Additional solicitor general Anil Singh said, “During custodial interrogation, Peter Mukerjea revealed that a bank account in the name of Sheena Bora might have been opened in HSBC or any other bank in Singapore or Hong Kong by Indrani Mukerjea.”

“Reliable information has been received that the company INX Media Pvt Ltd, run by Peter and Indrani, had carried out an internal audit, in which nine companies have share holdings,” Mr Singh added. “In those companies around `900 crore have been reportedly invested. As on date March 31 2009, these companies were found and alleged to have instances of misallocation and siphoning of substantial amount of funds by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea. The CA documents substantiate the above facts,” he said.

Defence lawyer Mihir Gheewala argued that to verify bank accounts and find out the financial transactions, Peter’s custody was not required.

The CBI said Peter’s custody was needed to ascertain the modus operandi adopted by him and Indrani in the probability of suspected siphoning off of money and possibility of parking in different benami (Sheena’s) account in India and abroad.”

Mr Singh also added that in the statement of Vidhi and Rahul it had been revealed that Peter had told them that he had spoken to Sheena and she was fine. If Indrani had told him about Sheena’s well being he would have told that Indrani told me this, but instead he had confirmed that he had spoken to Sheena, they said.

Seeking Peter’s custody, the CBI, which had claimed financial transaction as the motive behind Sheena’s murder, said it had written to Interpol seeking access to accounts.

The CBI has taken details of the ITR details of both Indrani and Peter’s account in the last three days. It also wanted to hold a lie detection test to verify the versions. Psychological test reports were also awaited, it said. Peter Mukerjea was taken to Delhi again Thursday night.