Court questions Singh’s bail bid as six more files emerge

The Suva Magistrate Court is set to hear the bail application of Deep Singh, who faces multiple charges of making fraudulent M-PAiSA transactions.

Singh appeared before Resident Magistrate Yogesh Prasad today in two matters, both alleging that he made false promises to people who wanted to find cheap rental cars.

In the first case, Singh is charged with obtaining financial advantage by deception of $80, after promising a customer to hire out a private rental for two days at this cheap price.

In another matter, Singh faces another four counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception, where his advertisements involved amounts of $160, $70, $250 and $480 worth of rental hire.

The court questioned his lawyer on why he should be granted bail given that he already had matters before the court, as well as another matter before his brother, Magistrate Shageeth Somaratne.

It was also heard that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) was intending to interview him in relation to six other files with similar offences.

His lawyer from the Legal Aid Commission, Emosi Balenaivalu, asked the court to grant him bail, given he had the right to apply for bail and that he disputed all these claims.

Mr Balenaivalu said he was bailed in Magistrate Somaratne's court and that this process needed to be conducted for every other case.

He sought strict bail conditions. Mr Balenaivalu said the CID investigations were expected to take a certain period of time.

The court said these were valid arguments and that it would hear the responses of State Prosecutions at the next proceeding set for September 16.

Singh remains remanded until then.