Son of Congress MlA from Jamnagar Raghavji Patel and three others were arrested in Rs 75 lakh coal scam. The Jamanagar sessions court had issued warrant against 18 accused in the duplicate supply of coal that include Patel’s son Jayendra.
According to sources, the scam was unearthed in July following a complaint against chief accused Jayendra and other 34 people. Police had spent long hours with the accused for interrogation and later on decided to arrest him. Though, he applied for anticipatory bail in session court, but it was rejected.
A police officer said that the accused used to import coal for Essar Group at Bedi port. The imported coal’s value was estimated at Rs 6,000 per tonne. However, the accused used to purchase substandard coal from a local company near Jamnagar town at Rs 1,000 per tonne. They used to load trucks with same number plates from port as well as NRE Coke’s warehouse in Khmbhalia town and instead of supplying imported coal to Essar Group. They used to supply substandard coal to the oil company. The imported coal was transported to Morbi town and was sold to units of ceramic industries.
The scam came to light when police seized two trucks with same numbers 12. Following investigation police found that the accused had transported 1,900 tonne imported coal worth Rs 76 lakh to other industrial units.
In the interest of 1,400 employees, National Council for Civil liberties (NCCl), an NGO based in Ahmedabad and headed by VK Saxena is providing legal and research support to the complainants. “We gave our expertise to prepare 14-page comprehensive complaint with 56 pages of supporting documents,” said Saxena.
“Kakkad brothers, Behl and Ms Savani, in collusion with their personal finance consultant Mihir Jitendra Patel and other auditors, have fudged the accounts and created false and fabricated accounts. They portray a very rosy picture as if the company is showing excellent performance and on the basis thereof, procured several contracts from the Maharashtra, Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh. The audited balance sheets for the last two fiscal years of this organisation were manipulated to reflect huge profits and to defraud the employees, bankers, creditors, vendors and Government-owned companies,” says the complaint.
With the intention to siphoning the funds of the company and to cheat the employees and financial Institutions, Kakkad developed three foreign companies namely SIS Global (USA), INC in Oak Brook, Illinois, SIS Global (FZE) in the UAE and Kompac Technologies ltd, Hongkong.
According to the complainant, it is not worthy that when the company was not in a position to pay salary of staff and was defaulting in payment to statutory authorities from September 2012, these huge investments in subsidiary companies and in mutual funds. Mathur and Nigam have also forwarded copy of complaint to the Gujarat Chief Minister. They have demanded that the FIR be registered against Kakkad brothers and others under Section 120-B,114, 34, 379, 406, 420, 465, 467, 468,471 & 474 etc of the IPC and till the probe is on bank accounts of the subsidiary companies of Kakkad be freezed with immediate effect.