Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the investigating officer (IO) of the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) to remain present on Tuesday with the case diary in connection with a massive corporate fraud involving forged share certificates and illegal transfer of assets worth over Rs 1,000 crore.
About The Case
The court was hearing a plea filed by Mamta Digvijay Singh, one of the arrested accused, seeking quashing of the magistrate’s order directing the registration of an FIR under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as the FIR itself. Singh, along with co-director Mangesh Pandurang Kadam, was arrested on September 10 in the alleged scam. On Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gauram Ankhad questioned the necessity of immediate arrests.
“There are so many such cases. What was the need to arrest these two immediately?” the bench asked, while directing the IO to place on record whether notices were issued to other accused and what inquiries were made prior to the arrests. The court noted that several accused, including Suketu Shah, Nilkanthan Iyer, Nirmal Jain, Balaji Raghuram and Mohammad Shahid do not have any interim protection from arrest.
The matter will be heard further on Tuesday after the IO furnishes details from the case diary. Public prosecutor KV Saste assured the court that the IO would remain present in the court with the case diary. Meanwhile, counsel for the complainant raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of Singh’s petition, arguing that an order under Section 156(3) CrPC can only be challenged through revision proceedings.
The complaint was filed by businessman Rajat Jhunjhunwala, who alleged that his stake in Shajas Developers Pvt Ltd and its subsidiary JLS Realty Pvt Ltd was fraudulently wiped out by the accused. EOW alleged that nearly 3.9 million shares were illegally dematerialised and transferred through shell firms using fabricated signatures. Forged documents were also submitted to the Registrar of Companies. Witnesses have alleged that fake pledges of shares were created in favour of IDBI Trusteeship Services, raising questions over the involvement of other entities.
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