Daijiworld Media Network - Pune
Pune, Jun 30: The alleged murder case of Pune-based realtor Ketan Agarwal has taken a new turn after advocate Aashutosh Srivastava issued a Rs 10 crore defamation notice to Sahil Goyal, brother of prime accused Siya Goyal, accusing him of making false and defamatory statements that harmed his professional reputation.
The development followed a dispute over the legal representation of Siya during court proceedings in the high-profile murder case.
On Monday, Siya Goyal and her co-accused and boyfriend Chetan Chaudhary were produced before the Vadgaon Maval court after their initial police custody ended. The court extended their police custody for the second time until July 3 to allow further investigation.
During the hearing, advocate Srivastava appeared before the court claiming to represent Siya and submitted a vakalatnama carrying her alleged signature. However, Siya informed the court that advocate Vipul Dushing was her lawyer and not Srivastava. Her family also maintained that Dushing had been officially appointed as her legal representative.
Before the hearing, Sahil Goyal had publicly alleged that Srivastava was neither authorised nor appointed by the family to represent Siya. He claimed that the family had submitted an affidavit before the court clarifying the matter and alleged that the advocate may have obtained Siya’s signature “by deceit”. Sahil had also accused Srivastava of threatening the family.
Following the allegations, Srivastava served a legal notice seeking Rs 10 crore in damages.
According to the notice, Srivastava alleged that Sahil made “false, baseless, defamatory and misleading” statements against him, causing damage to his professional reputation. The notice demanded withdrawal of the allegations, a public apology and a written assurance that such statements would not be repeated in the future.
Responding to the controversy, Srivastava said his legal team had approached Siya directly and that she had voluntarily authorised them to represent her.
“Our team met Siya Goyal. She required legal assistance, so she signed the vakalatnama in our favour. Siya Goyal is an adult and is fully capable of making her own decisions. Sahil Goyal’s statement is incorrect because we never spoke to him, we dealt directly with Siya. She spoke to us and executed a vakalatnama in our favour, valid up to the Bombay High Court. The document bears her signatures,” Srivastava said.
The allegations mentioned in the legal notice are claims made by Srivastava, while Sahil Goyal has not yet issued any public response.
Meanwhile, police have continued seeking custodial interrogation of Siya and Chaudhary, stating that the investigation has revealed that the accused had earlier visited Lohagad Fort to identify the location from where Agarwal was allegedly pushed to his death.
The prosecution informed the court that investigators are attempting to recover deleted digital evidence, verify the sequence of events with Chaudhary, identify people who interacted with the accused at the fort through CCTV footage, recover Agarwal’s missing passport allegedly discarded by Siya during a trip, and question newly identified witnesses.
Police allege that 20-year-old Siya conspired with her 22-year-old boyfriend Chaudhary to kill Agarwal as she did not want to marry him and feared that cancelling the wedding would damage her family’s reputation.
Both accused have been arrested on charges of conspiring to murder the realtor by allegedly pushing him off a cliff at Lohagad Fort in Pune district.