Mumbai News: Special MPID Court Acquits Finance Broker Ajay Thakkar's Wife In ₹57.70 Crore Investor Fraud Case After 24 Years

Mumbai: The special MPID court has acquitted finance broker Ajay Thakkar’s wife Bhavana in connection with the case registered by EOW for cheating investors to the tune of Rs 57.70 crores from 1998 till April 2001. The acquittal comes 24 years after Thakkar, who was said to be the man behind the alleged scam, was found dead in Gujarat.

The special MPID judge Nikhil Prakash Mehta while acquitting Bhavana observed that there is no evidence to show that she was a promoter or responsible for the management of Ajay's business. Nor has it been established that she had accepted the deposits or she had intention to deceive investors.

“She never promised them higher returns which suggest that she never made false and wrongful representation with intention to deceive investors,” the court said while acquitting her.

As per the prosecution case, Ajay along with his wife and other family members had formed a financial institution sometime in the year 1998 and started accepting deposits from people with a promise of higher returns of 1% to 1.5% per month. The firm accepted the deposits in form of cash as well as in form of cheque and in return they gave a bill and also a postdated cheque as assurance.

The complainant claimed that from March 2001 onward, the accused financial firm stopped giving interest to depositors on their invested money. The investors visited the office of the firm asking for returns of deposit with interest many times but they did not get a response. Hence the case was registered with Malad police station on April 5, 2001. The case was later taken up by the Economic Offence Wing for probe.

It was claimed that after registration of the case, Ajay committed suicide in Gujarat and his wife Bhavana was arrested on April 12, 2001. The case against Ajay was, however, formally abated on April 14, 2001.

The agency however had filed a chargesheet against the couple in February 2003. The trial in the case began in January 2017. The public prosecutor had examined in total ten witnesses which included 9 investors.

The prosecution had claimed that the depositors, who invested their hard earned money in the financial scheme floated by deceased accused Ajay Thakkar and his wife accused Bhavana Thakkar, promising higher returns and after acceptance of deposit they defaulted in making payment to investors of their matured amount.

The defence on the other hand had claimed that Bhavana is nowhere involved in the alleged crime. She has not accepted the deposit from investors as she was not in contact with them at any point of time. No amount of deposit came to her. She did not receive any benefit from the financial scheme floated by her husband. She does not have knowledge about payment of alleged higher interest promised by her deceased husband to investors. She never took any active participation in the alleged business of her deceased husband, the defence had contended.

The court after hearing both the side, observed that “From the evidence of prosecution witnesses it could not be established that accused Bhavana Thakkar was promoter, partner, director, manager responsible for the management of or conducting of the business or affairs of the financial establishment and in that capacity she accepted deposit promising higher returns and fraudulently made default in repayment of deposits on maturity with benefit.”

“Further it could not be established that depositors entrusted any money with accused Bhavana Thakkar to be utilized by the accused financial firm to gain profit to be used in repaying deposit with interest to investors,” the court said.