Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court has granted the regular bail to Aartiben Savaliya, the sole woman accused in a counterfeit currency case involving fake Rs 500 notes worth Rs 3.28 crore. Savaliya was arrested in March along with six others, including a yoga instructor from Surat.While courts had declined to grant bail to the co-accused, Justice H D Suthar allowed Savaliya’s plea and granted her conditional bail on a bond of Rs 25,000, her advocate Rushi Bhavsar said.During the hearing, Savaliya’s counsel argued that she had been falsely implicated in the case. It was submitted that her name did not appear in the FIR and that she was arraigned later based on the statement of a co-accused. The defence further contended that no counterfeit currency, printing material or other incriminating articles were recovered from her and that the investigation had been completed with the filing of the chargesheet.The prosecution opposed the bail application, alleging that the accused were part of a larger operation involving the procurement of material from abroad, software development and circulation of counterfeit Rs 500 notes. It claimed that 11 fake currency notes were recovered from Savaliya during an interception.The prosecution also alleged that the main accused, who ran an NGO and was facing financial difficulties, conspired with others to manufacture counterfeit currency. According to the prosecution, the group imported material from China, developed software for printing fake notes and produced around 50,000 counterfeit Rs 500 notes, which were subsequently circulated in the market.
