Bonus shares worth Rs 16 cr belonging to elderly woman transferred into duplicate Demat account; EOW begins probe

In 2017, the company declared that they would be issuing a bonus share against each share (1:1) following which Gandhi and her relatives had 1,08,000 shares in their names. “The elderly woman does not have a share certificate of the additional 54,000 shares that she got, but she has documents of dividends that were issued for 1,08,000 shares,” the officer said.

On April 12, 2023, the company issued a letter to the complainant asking her to update her KYC details. “The complainant has a share certificate of 54,000 shares and as they wanted to obtain another share certificate of 54,000 bonus shares that was issued in 2017, they moved an application to credit those shares in her Demat account. During the process it came to light that the bonus shares (54,000) were fraudulently transferred into the Demat account of another Vanita Gandhi,” said an EOW officer.

It was further revealed that the shares which are worth Rs 16 crore that were fraudulently transferred have been sold, an officer said. “As the fraudulent transactions were conducted with the help of two share trading firms, the complainant suspects that the employees of the firms are also involved due to which the firms have also been named in the FIR,” the officer said.

The police said that the case was initially registered at MHB police station in Borivali on Thursday after which the investigation was transferred to the specialised EOW.