Smriti Irani voyeur case: Fabindia's top executives join probe, appear before cops

Top officials of Fabindia, including its chief executive officer and managing director, on Friday appeared before Goa police to record their statements in connection with a voyeurism case.

Fabindia’s Managing Director William Bissel, Chief Executive Officer Subrata Dutta, regional manager Ruchira Pujari, marketing chief Ramu Chandra, stores in-charge Kundan Gupta, E-commerce head Arun Naikar and category head Ashima Agarwal were present before the investigating officer on Friday morning, after they were summoned in connection with the case.

All the seven officials were on Thursday granted interim anticipatory bail by district court at Mapusa which asked them to remain present before the crime branch for inquiry.

The court had fixed the next hearing for April 23 as the crime branch failed to file its response before the judge.

The district court had earlier this week granted anticipatory bail to Fabindia’s Candolim store manager Chaitrali Sawant, who was questioned by crime branch on Wednesday.

Goa police had registered a case of voyeurism against four employees of Fabindia after Union Human Resources Development minister Smriti Irani, who visited the company’s store in Candolim village last week, alleged that it had a CCTV camera focusing at the trial room.

The four employees were arrested and booked under Indian Penal Code sections 354C (voyeurism), 509 (intrusion into privacy) and IT Act’s section 66E (capturing, publishing image of private area of any person without his/her consent). They were later granted bail.

Fabindia had denied it placed hidden cameras in any of its stores, holding that the camera in question was part of the surveillance system.