Mumbai: Two arrested for filing backdated affidavits to claim refunds

Even as criminal proceedings against Masood and his associates continue in trial courts, the HC had issued orders in 2010 and 2012 to wind up City Limouzines and City Realcom. In 2017, the court had cleared the way for the assets of the two firms seized by investigating agencies to be liquidated by transferring them to the official liquidator.

However, before that could be done, individuals who claimed to have lost their investment in the firms had been approaching the liquidator’s office with claims for refunds. According to a complaint filed at the Azad Maidan police station in February, three employees in the liquidator’s office — guards Gopal Bagul and Santosh Chavan and clerk Keshav Satpute — had been allegedly working behind the scenes, propping up fake investors and directing them to file claims for refunds from the firms. The three were arrested the same month.

One investor, Sangli resident Ramdas Yadav, who lost Rs 1.2 lakh, had written to the liquidator’s office in 2017, claiming that the trio was involved in a massive fraud and engaged in misdirecting investors. In his complaint, Yadav had alleged that when he approached the liquidator’s office in July 2015, the trio advised him to file a backdated affidavit.

“The accused told investors that if they backdate their affidavits to 2013 instead of claiming damages from 2015, they stood to make a lot more money as compensation,” said an official at Azad Maidan police station.

The police added that the accused took payments of Rs 7,000 each from 25 investors to file the fraudulent affidavits with the help of a chartered accountant and to “manage” senior officials in the office. “All the while, the accused repeatedly told the investors to trust them and that they would receive their money within six months as the EOW had attached company assets worth Rs 200 crore,” he said.

However, after a year went by without any word on the refunds, Yadav and his fellow investors approached the government officials again. “This time, the accused claimed that the official handling their claims had been transferred and asked each investor to pay Rs 20,000 to bribe the new official. While Yadav refused to pay, other investors paid a total of Rs 3.75 lakh to the accused,” said the official.

Following his refusal, Yadav wrote an email to the liquidator’s office detailing his allegations, on the basis of which, the office initiated an inquiry and registered a complaint with the police after finding preliminary culpability on the part of its employees, the police said.

Yadav also alleged that the trio had attempted to dissuade and even intimidate him to take back his complaint. “The employees claimed to be associated with a prominent political party and threatened to harm Yadav. He claimed the trio sent some men to his home to threaten him in 2017,” the official said.

After their arrest on Saturday, Mhetre and Dalvi were brought to Mumbai and booked on charges of cheating, forgery and being part of a criminal conspiracy under the IPC. “The men from Sangli had attempted to cheat the court by filing false claims and were working with the arrested employees,” the official said, adding that the police are on the lookout for more such fake investors.