Rather in unfair spotlight for surname, claims his counsel

JAMMU: Days after his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in a bank loan default case involving Rs 177 crore, businessman Hilal Rather’s legal counsel has alleged his selected targeting in the case, even as it denied the media reports stating that he had diverted the funds to purchase properties abroad.

The counsel claimed that Hilal was cooperating with the premier investigation agency ever since first notice was served upon him, and said that he was being targeted for being the son of a former minister, even though the loan was sanctioned for the firm involving four more partners.

Hilal is the son of senior NC leader Abdul Rahim Rather, who was the finance minister of Jammu and Kashmir when Hilal was sanctioned the loan by the Jammu and Kashmir Ban for his ambitious township project known as Paradise Avenue at Narwal Bala in 2012.

Hilal was arrested by the ACB on January 16.

“All the loans have been sanctioned to Hilal and Paradise Avenue, where he is only one of the five partners,” said the legal counsel for Hilal.

It may be mentioned that besides Hilal, the other partners in Paradise Avenue are Daljeet Wadhera and Deepshikha Jamwal of Jammu and Dr Rizwan Raheem Dar of Srinagar, and Ghulam Mohd Bhatt of Baramulla, Kashmir.

“Why only one of the partners of Paradise Avenue, Hilal, whose surname happens to be ‘Rather’ has been taken into custody,” it questioned.

The counsel hit out at a media report claiming that Hilal has acquired an eight bedroom villa in Palm Jumerah, Dubai in the neighborhood of famous celebrities by diverting the loan funds received from the bank.

“No such property exists and in our humble opinion it is a figment of the creative imagination of the author to add spice to his story and capture a few more eyeballs,” it said, urging the media house to make public the details.

If it exists, ‘the value of the alleged property would be far more than the total loan amount taken from J&K Bank and it can be used by the agencies/bank/Government to dispose it off and make public money good’, said the counsel.
The counsel objected to the way granting of loans was linked to Abdul Rahim Rather, alleging political influence and pressure.

“If that is the case then it needs to be answered that why did the bank support the project through further financial assistance to Paradise Avenue in 2015 and 2016 when an adverse political dispensation was in power and the bank authorities were not under any so-called influence or pressure to oblige,” it said.

“We would like to categorically put on record that the whole issue of the Loan Amount of Rupees of Rs.177 Crores has to be understood in the right perspective. The principal component of the loan primarily for construction of the project was only around Rs.128 Crores, rest being interest component and anyone with some idea of construction costs in Prefabricated Steel Structures can vouch that more money has been spent on the project than has been drawn from the bank, something which can be easily corroborated through a valuation of the constructed project by independent experts.

“An attempt has been made to project Hilal as a petty criminal evading the law of the land by claiming that he was ‘picked from Jammu’ when the fact of the matter is he has been fully co-operating with the agencies since June 2019, despite undergoing two major surgeries in the past three months and even on the day of the arrest he had himself gone to the office of Anti Corruption Bureau to participate in the investigations where he was informed that he is being taken into custody to which he as a law abiding citizen complied with and is seeking due legal remedy,” said the counsel.