Suresh Prabhu’s fate to be decided within a month

Sandesh Prabhudesai
21 July 1998  

Will the judicial magistrate drop union environment minister Suresh Prabhu from the criminal case he is facing for duping hundreds of Goan investors for over Rs 1.2 crore ?

It would be known only on 21 August, when the court would give its verdict. Prabhu’s counsel has forcefully argued that he was neither the chairman nor the director of the financial company he had floated when its cheques got bounced. He has thus requested the court to recall the process.

According to the Shiv Sena’s banker-turned-politician, he was implicated in this case simply to make it a public news since he was the minister, who headed the Western India Financial Services Ltd.

Prabhu, the son-in-law of Goa, is presently also facing a police enquiry for cheating and fraud along with his five other director colleagues, who are still absconding. Simultaneously, the court hearing is on in a private criminal case filed earlier.

Adv Gulam Vanvatti, Prabhu’s counsel, claims that Prabhu had resigned from the company in May ‘96 while it was also accepted by the board of directors later in November. Based on various court judgements, he also contends that such resignation comes into effect at once.

Adv Gurudas Tamba, on behalf of the investors, however expects the court to rely more upon the documentary evidence which prima facie proves Prabhu’s direct involvement into the multi-crore scam.

His resignation was notified only in March ’97, he says, asking why it was not made known to the public if he had resigned one year earlier.

He also laughs out Prabhu’s contention of falsely implicating him because he was a public figure, by bringing to the notice of the court that the case was filed when he was not even a minister.

The only documentary evidence Prabhu is holding is a letter signed by the assistant registrar of the Registrar of Companies of Maharashtra, which talks about making correction in Prabhu’s resignation date.

But Tamba suspects credibility of the letter, signed on 2 July, though the court has overruled his charge that it was sought either by bribing or through political pressure. C Fernandes, the judicial magistrate, however has accepted his contention that the assistant registrar was also not sure about Prabhu’s resignation date.

Tamba wonders why the letter was sought in July this year to make correction into Prabhu’s resignation date when the case was filed in March last year.

Meanwhile, chief minister Pratapsing Rane has once again announced that he would try and bring a legislation to penalise unscrupulous non-banking financial companies during the ongoing Assembly session, once the centre approves it. If not, then the ordinance would be issued, he added.

Besides the WIFSL, over 20 such cases have come to light in the tourist state where the bogus NBFCs have duped the Goan investors for over Rs 100 crore till date. Most of them are the Gulf-based NRIs, having large amount of deposits.

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