Andhra Pradesh court rejects bail plea of Amway India CEO William Pinckney

Hyderabad: A local court in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh rejected the bail petition moved by Amway India CEO William Scott Pinckney, arrested in connection with a criminal case filed against the direct selling company.

The court while rejecting the bail plea on Wednesday, allowed police to take him into five-day custody for further questioning, said Kurnool Superintendent of Police (SP) Raghurami Reddy.

"The police were permitted to take him (Pinckney) into five-days custody from tomorrow. It (the business) is a huge racket that is going on for the past several years. We need to unearth the details with regard to the company's revenues and mode of operations," the police official told PTI over phone from Kurnool.

A detailed investigation needs to be done further, the SP said.

Responding to a complaint alleging financial irregularities in Amway's operations, Pinckney was arrested in Gurgaon by the Kurnool Police on Monday and brought to Kurnool on a Transit Warrant.

He was produced before a court on Tuesday, which sent him to 14-days judicial custody and was subsequently lodged in a prison in Kadapa district.

Meanwhile, Khammam Police have obtained a Prisoner Transit (PT) warrant from another court in Khammam and the same was produced before the Kadapa jail authorities seeking Pinckney’s custody as they too had registered a similar kind of criminal case against the company.

According to police, as many as seven cases were registered separately against Amway in Guntur, Vijayawada, Prakasam, Khammam and Medak besides two in Hyderabad and investigations are going on.