The Kerala High Court has directed the Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Kochi, to complete the probe into a case pertaining to the financial scam in the BSNL Engineers’ Cooperative Society within a year.
The court, in an order given on Monday, also directed the ED to initiate “all necessary legal action” under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the accused in the case.
The court set the one-year deadline after the counsel for the ED informed it that an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under PMLA was registered on March 29, 2023, on the basis of a case registered (Crime No. 81 of 2023) by the Vanchiyoor police.
The order by Justice Kauser Edappagath came on a petition filed by N.A. Abraham, convener of the BSNL Engineers’ Cooperative Society Depositors’ Forum, and Surendran Nair K.
The Vanchiyoor police had registered the case under relevant IPC sections dealing with criminal breach of trust, cheating, and criminal acts by several persons.
Further, the court has also directed the ED to hold camp sittings in Thiruvananthapuram for recording the statements of the witnesses.
The elderly petitioners had wanted the court to direct the ED to initiate prosecution measures against the accused under the PMLA. They had also urged the court to direct the ED to hold sittings in Thiruvananthapuram so that it is easier for the depositors, who are mostly elderly citizens, to give evidence.
The incident
The scam pertains to the embezzlement of depositors’ money to the tune of ₹260 crore. Several hundreds of depositors, majority of them in the 65-85 age group, who had invested in deposit schemes offered by the society, were cheated of their life savings. The inquiry report on the scam had detected “serious financial misappropriation” orchestrated through bogus Fixed Deposit receipts and ‘parallel’ registers.
Earlier this month, the High Court had sought a status report from the ED on the progress of investigation. The Hindu
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