Selva Nadar, wife among 8 charge-sheeted by EOW in Rs 300 crore Ashtavinayak scam case

The police have filed a voluminous chargesheet running into 4,200 pages in the case, which will be heard by Additional Sessions Judge V D Nimbalkar. The first hearing of the case, filed with Bundgarden Police Station in March 2023 and later transferred to the EOW, is scheduled for October 20.

The case involves the alleged cheating of 273 people, most of whom are IT professionals, by luring them to take out personal loans beyond their repayment capacities and invest the funds in Ashtavinayak Investment. They were promised an annual return of 6 to 12 per cent apart from salary support of three months in case of a job loss and insurance cover for the ‘profile investor’.

In July 2023, one of the fraud victims – Prabhat Ranjan of Kharadi who owed six different banks Rs 88 lakh– ended his life and blamed Nadar and three others in his note which led to the registration of an abetment of suicide offence against Nadar and others.

Soon after Ranjan’s death, the EOW officials arrested three alleged associates of Nadar namely Prasad Shinde, Ajay Khadse, and Nitin Shinde. Apart from these, four fresh names found in the three-volume chargesheet are those of Sneha Nadar, Pranay Atul Mehta, Mangesh Mohan Newase, and Nikhil Ravindra Mahamuni.

All the eight accused have been booked under sections 420, 406, 409, 465, 467, 468, 471, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3 of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act.

“Sneha, the main accused Selva Nadar’s wife, is a director in two firms which were used to defraud the individuals. She is absconding,” said an EOW official.

Mehta, Newase, and Mahamuni were involved in getting clients for Ashtavinayak and processing the loans, officials said.

Apart from the three arrested accused, who are still behind bars as a sessions judge rejected their bail plea in September, all others are reported to have absconded.

Nadar established his investment consultancy in 2009, after working with a private firm in Pune’s Hinjewadi for some time. He was also involved in share market coaching and banking consultancy.

In 2017, he shifted his office to the tony Nucleus Mall from where he operated until February 2023 when the investors became suspicious of the firm failing to pay the promised EMIs on time.

He fled the city before the investors approached the police by striking a hurried deal for an apartment he was staying in with a neighbour. Before that, he had received a partial payment for the apartment but did not complete the sale deed.