Pune police lodge case against IPS officer Bhagyashree Navtake

During her tenure with Pune city police, Navtake was part of investigation of three cases connected to the BHR scam registered in Pune district in November 2020. These three cases were filed at three police stations — Deccan police station under Pune City jurisdiction, Alandi police station under Pimpri Chinchwad police and Shikrapur police station under Pune rural police.

A senior police officer with Pune police said, “Following the complaints by some accused in the BHR scam, the state Criminal Investigation Department was directed to conduct an inquiry into the registration and subsequent investigation of these offences. The CID had submitted the report to the state Director General of Police office and subsequently to the Home Department. The government then directed that an investigation be conducted into the lapses in the probe of the BHR case by the then police machinery. To that effect, an offence has been registered against the DCP of the Economic Offences Wing, Bhagyashree Navatake. FIR registered at Bundgarden police station names Navatake and unidentified other accused.”

It was alleged that BHR State Cooperative Credit Society had lured thousands of people across Maharashtra by offering lucrative fixed deposits and other investments schemes. Investors had deposited lakhs of rupees but they never got the assured returns. Over 80 offences were lodged in connection with the BHR State Cooperative Credit Society scam in which thousands of investors were allegedly duped to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore by misappropriation of their deposits. Directors of the BHR State Cooperative Credit Society were among the arrested by Pune police at the time.

The FIR against Navatake, which has been filed on behalf of the government by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) of Pune City, Nikhil Pingle, reads, “The three offences were registered following inadequate preliminary inquiry. The complainants in cases at Deccan and Alandi police station were not present when the cases were registered. Set procedures were not followed in the investigation. In the cases registered with Pune rural and Pimpri Chinchwad police, unnecessary interference and pressure was put to register offences. In these cases, select persons were named as accused, the extent of the probe was shown out of proportion and a person with conflict of interest was appointed as prosecutor.”

120B (Criminal conspiracy), 167 (Public servant knowingly disobeying law), 177 (Furnishing false information), 193 (Punishment for false evidence), 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence), 203 (Giving false information respecting an offence), 466 (Forgery of record or a valuable security), 474 (Having possession of forged documents) among others. Present Deputy Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences and Cyber) Vivek Masal, has been assigned the investigation of the case. Navtake was not available for comment.

In 2021 and 2022, Navtake led a high profile investigation into slew of malpractices in the Maharashtra government recruitment exams. This probe saw registration of five cases in which dozens of arrests were made including those of several senior government officials, a serving IAS officer, several middlemen, people from private entities contracted for recruitment processes and coaching class owners.

Over the same period she also led an year long meticulous probe by Pune police’s Cyber crime cell that unravelled a shocking story of how two cyber experts including an ex-IPS officer allegedly siphoned off huge sums of cryptocurrency from the wallets of the accused arrested in a multimillion dollar bitcoin ponzi scheme in 2018, for which they assisted Pune police.