After HC nudge, Police register FIR on woman’s complaint of ‘losing’ Rs 75 L worth shares in 2019

On April 4, a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Neela K Gokhale, while hearing a plea by a 48-year-old woman, originally from Mulund, had directed the Police to register an FIR.

The Court had said the fraud appeared to be ‘an insider’s job’ and pulled up officials from Cuffe Parade Police station for ‘shameful’ conduct for not immediately arresting the bank staff member concerned.

The bench had also said that “alacrity” by investigating agencies in such matters was “important”, failing which the concerned employees would think that “they can continue to fool people.”

Advocates Waseem Pangarkar, Noopur Mathrawala and Abhishek Gupta instructed by MZM Legal LLP for the petitioner, a a former systems manager with Wipro Ltd, submitted that she was issued shares in lieu of her years of service till 2005 and had opened demat account with IDBI in 2004, with the shares’ value as per 2019 statement was Rs 75.99 lakh. During her India visit in 2022, she found that her shares were “completely wiped off without her consent’ and various fraudulent forms containing forged identity proofs were accepted by the bank in 2019.

The petitioner had later come to know that one Bhupendra Goyal, who gained access to her demat account illegally had sold large amounts of her shares.

When she visited the IDBI Capital Markets branch in the city, she was told that no account was registered in her name and later she learnt that Goyal was the holder and beneficiary of the Demat account. After she received no satisfactory response from RBI’s banking ombudsman, the woman approached the HC.

On Tuesday, the state government lawyer informed the bench that an FIR has been registered in the case by Cuffe Parade Police station on April 14 of offences under sections 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 471 (Using forged document as genuine) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) among others and the FIR was transferred to property cell, CID, Mumbai.

The concerned investigating officer submitted that besides IPC, provisions of Information Technology (IT) Act too will be invoked and the investigation will be carried out fairly and will be taken to its logical end.

After the bench questioned whether the police will take action against the Bank or its employees if found responsible, the IO responded in affirmative. The court took the statement on record and said it will monitor the probe. “This is a half baked investigation.. With no seriousness by the bank.. Your employee syphons huge money and you take no action,” the court remarked to the Bank.

Seeking further progress report from police and response from the Bank on refund of amount, it posted the hearing to April 29.