PNB scam: Whistleblower blames Registrar of Companies for not taking action against Mehul Choksi
Hari Prasad said he had filed a complaint against Choksi after the latter’s company cheated him of Rs 13 crore.
A Bengaluru-based businessman on Friday said that he had filed a complaint against Mehul Choksi – one of the prime accused in the Rs 11,380-crore Punjab National Bank scam – after the latter’s company cheated him of Rs 13 crore, The Hindu reported.
“I am not the only one,” Hari Prasad told the daily. “All over India, there are hundreds of people who got cheated by him.” Prasad, who had entered into a business deal with Choksi in 2012, said the jeweller had promised a number of things “and ultimately after taking the investment from me, they did not fulfil any of the agreement terms”.
He then registered a complaint with the Bengaluru Police against Choksi and his group companies in 2015. A year later, he wrote to the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and even the Prime Minister’s Office.
Prasad told The News Minute that he received an acknowledgement letter from the PMO, saying that his complaint had been forwarded to the Registrar of Companies. “It is the duty of [the] RoC to look into details or contact me and ask me more questions to understand why I am making these allegations,” he pointed out. “But nobody did anything. I cannot blame PMO, it did its job of forwarding the complaint. PM cannot get involved in everything.”
Prasad said he received an e-mail from the RoC on July 18, 2016, stating that his grievance had been “disposed of”. He then attempted to seek clarification from the agency, but did not receive any reply.
“Since “I did not get any response from RoC on July 29, I forwarded that copy of acknowledgement [from the PMO] to the RoC again stating that action needs to be taken immediately before the accused fled like Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher Group,” Prasad told The Hindu. “Later on I came to know from Choksi’s people that they managed some people in RoC and the matter is closed. They did not take any further action.”