Ghatkopar crisis: Their money's gone, but they can't prove it, says EOW

Although cash and gold worth lakhs of rupees belonging to several investors are in jeopardy after the closure of Ghatkoparbased jeweller Rasiklal Sankalchand Jewellers Private Limited the police are baffled as they have no concrete complaints or supporting evidence A day after middays frontpage story Now a Rs 300 crore crisis in Ghatkopar two complainants submitted written complaints to the Pantnagar police However neither of them gave any documents to support their claims of having invested Rs 20 lakh and Rs 40 lakh in the jewellers schemeSanjay Bhalerao senior police inspector of Pantnagar police station said We have only received two complaints so far wherein the complainants have stated that they had invested over R20 lakh and R40 lakh and that they have been cheated We are waiting for them to submit documents to corroborate the claimsZenil Shah a director of Rasiklal Sankalchand Jewellers PicRajesh GuptaWe are expecting 10 to 12 formal complaints and will contact the directorsproprietors of the outlet accordingly A case will be registered after considering everyones version and evidence explained BhaleraoAdvocate Vinod Sampat who is also a resident of Ghatkopar E expressed similar concerns It will be interesting to know how many investors dare to come forward and disclose their investment in the gold scheme as they will also have to declare their sources of income It is common knowledge that people invest unaccounted money in various gold schemes This is reducing due to the impact of GST These investors would not want to come under the governments radar by revealing their sources of income in a police complaint said SampatThe jewellers outlet in Ghatkopar EastMeanwhile Member of Parliament MP Manoj Kotak and MLA Parag Shah met Joint Commissioner of Police EOW Rajvardhan Sinha along with a few investors on Friday morning Sinha assured full cooperation and appointed an officer to assist the complainantsSpeaking to midday Kotak said The EOW has recorded complainants statements and an officer of the rank of senior police inspector M Lad has been appointed to monitor the caseRasiklal Sankalchand Jewellers owes over R115 crore in bank loans PicRajesh GuptaWhereas Sinha said We are in the process of recording the complainants statements No FIR has been registered so far We will have to conduct preliminary inquiries A team will visit the outlet and verify all the claimsIn crisis since few monthsAccording to jewellers in Ghatkopar Rasiklal Sankalchand Jewelers was formed in 1972 and was very popular in the bullion market It was converted into a private limited company 2000 with its directors being Vatsal Jayesh Shah Jayesh Rasiklal Shah Zenil Jayesh Shah and Nilesh Rasiklal ShahIn the last couple of years the company started operating out of a 15000 sqft ground plus fourstorey structure on M G Road A jeweller on condition of anonymity said During demonetisation the Rasiklal outlet used to remain open till the early hours However in the past few days they had been defaulting on payments to gold suppliers which adversely impacted their businessWhat triggered the caseThe jeweller added They had taken a bank loan and had given their assets as collateral It was becoming difficult for them to repay it Worst was that some schemes involved depositing a certain amount of gold and getting one gram extra This made it difficult for them to raise funds We have also learnt that they were delaying the salaries of the staffAccording to locals the outlet was found shut two days ago which immediately caused panic Rumours started circulating on social media but Rasiklal Sankalchand pointed out that their shop is usually shut for two days after DhanterasOne of the directors Zenil Jayesh Shah registered a noncognisable complaint on October 29 under Section 500 criminal defamation of the Indian Penal Code at Pantnagar police station against unknown people for circulating fake message defaming the outlet Attempts made to contact Zenil and the other directors did not yield resultsHelp for a select fewWhen I met the proprietors along with the investors on Tuesday they were making excuses that they would sell their assets and pay everyone But we insisted that certain percentage of the invested amounts be paid immediately and he agreed to pay 10 to 15 per cent of the deposited value in the form of gold ornaments Gold worth R15 crore was given to investors till early morning said MLA ParagSome residents claim that those with power got some of their invested money in the form of gold but many others are in limbo Parag refuted these claims and said that he helped all who were present at the shop on Tuesday Also as promised Manoj and I accompanied the investors to the EOW Parag saidAccording to Parag the proprietors themselves told him about R115 crore that they owe in bank loans They also said that they have property worth R200 crore including a huge flat in Kukreja tower the 15000 sqft shop at M G Road and another flat in Neelkanth Valley But looking at how the market currently is it wont be easy to sell them Hence we decided to approach the EOW Parag addedPrakash Mehta a senior BJP leader and other local residents were upset with the highhandedness shown by Parag Mehta said It was an attempt to pressure the jeweller and get gold for a few select investorsMP Kotak and MLA Parag are not responsible to recover peoples money That is the polices job They may have gone with good intentions But according to what I am hearing the MLA got an inventory of goods prepared and assisted some people in recovering the money If this is true it could amount to interference in the administration of justice This is because if a stock is hypothecated with a bank how can a third party interest be created by the MLA said SampatDouble standards are observed at such times where one rule is applicable for the rich and mighty and the common man suffers the most This was also very evident in the PMC case where influential people were given backdoor entries into the bank to take their belongings One fails to understand what checks the regulators have for such events The government must insist on compulsory disclosures and mandatory publication of loan details just as salaries of top management are to be disclosed under the Companies Act Sampat concludedRs 15 croreValue of gold that was distributed by the jeweller to the investorsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates