The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has informed Madras High Court of having constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the charges of Universal Trading Solution Private Limited, a firm based in Coimbatore, of having cheated nearly 73,000 depositors in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and Karnataka to the tune of over ₹1,000 crore.
Justice G. Jayachandran recorded the submission made on behalf of Abhin Dinesh Modak, Additional Director General of Police, EOW, Chennai and closed a contempt of court petition filed against the officer by one of the depositors, for having allegedly disobeyed an order passed by the court on June 7, 2022 after hearing as many as 1,616 depositors.
Opposing the contempt plea moved by Ezhanchezhian Palanivel, Government Advocate (criminal side), R. Kishore Kumar produced a memorandum issued by the ADGP on March 23 this year, constituting an SIT comprising six police officials under the direct supervision of the Superintendent of Police, EOW, Chennai.
After recording the contents of the memorandum, the judge directed the SIT to file a status report at the end of every month before the special court for economic offences in Coimbatore, until it completes the investigation and files a charge-sheet. He also said the complainants would be entitled to a copy of the status reports.
In 2019, Justice Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court had taken serious note of the issue when Universal Trading Solution, represented by its Managing Director G. Ramesh had filed a petition in the High Court to quash a First Information Report registered against him and the company by the EOW in Coimbatore city.
Then, since an impression was provided to the court that only 363 depositors had to be repaid ₹11.55 crore, the court had appointed a retired judge to liquidate the assets of the company and repay the depositors. It was only thereafter that the magnitude of the offence was found to be much larger in scale, with FIRs having been registered in other States too.
Therefore, while dismissing the 2019 petition in June last year, Justice Jayachandran had directed the State to constitute an SIT as early as possible in order to investigate the crime.
