Bail granted to businessman arrested in

MUMBAI: A special Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) court has granted bail to a 51-year-old businessman from Gujarat, arrested for conspiring with Nikhil Roy, former manager at the State Bank of India, Mazgaon Circle Branch to fraudulently siphon off ₹36 crore from the fixed deposit account of the Bombay Iron and Steel Labour Board.
The special MPID judge, NP Mehta, in an order passed on September 23, observed that no material has been seized from the accused, Daksheshkumar Anantrai Shah, so far to show that he benefited from the fraudulently siphoned money.
The complaint was filed by Balraj Deshmukh, the chairman of Mumbai Lokhand and Polad Kamagar Mandal or the Bombay Iron and Steel Labour board, overseeing the management of the workers’ salaries and their other ancillary economic privileges. As per Deshmukh, Roy got in touch with the board office in December 2018 and suggested the board to invest their Fixed Deposit (FD) with his bank, promising a better interest rate of 6.75% per annum.
Subsequently, the board deposited the same in FD with SBI bank, Mazgaon Circle branch from December 2018 to February 2019, amounting to ₹45 crore.
The police submitted that Shah had conspired with Roy to siphon off the workers’ money, as they diverted the money to the bank accounts of Vernam Trading Pvt Ltd, Swetlana Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, and Crystlina Multimedia Pvt Ltd. Shah is alleged to have taken the help of the three individuals, who were appointed as directors of the said three companies, and under whom the bank accounts were opened to which the money was allegedly diverted.
As per the prosecution, Shah took a room on rent in Borivali to house the office of Swetlana Infrastructure and Crystlina Multimedia. Based on Deshmukh’s complaint, the EOW unit-3 of Mumbai had arrested Roy, Shah and other accused for allegedly “usurping the money kept in the fixed deposits for their benefits.”
Shah’s lawyer submitted that the Investigating officer could not bring forth strong arguments to prove Shah’s role in operating the bank account in the name of the three companies. They submitted that the investigating body found no material to prove that Shah benefitted from the worker’s money kept as fixed deposit in SBI.
The court found no evidence to prove that the money diverted to the shell companies from the FDs of the workers was transferred to Shah’s account. “There is no material to show that the present applicant has benefited from the money, which was transferred from the said three companies,” observed the court.
Granting bail to Shah, the court said, “In the future, if the trial of money is found from the bank account of the three shell Companies, Investigating Officer can very well freeze the bank account in which ill-gotten money came to be diverted”.
The Bombay high court in May this year had rejected the bail application of the main accused, Nikhil Roy, while observing that Roy’s actions caused significant financial loss to the Board’s members, mainly labourers relying on their savings.