Mumbai: ₹58-Crore SIES Trust Cheating Case Stuck As FIR Goes Missing, IO Skips Court Notices

Mumbai: The trial in the 2014 South Indian Education Society (SIES) Trust cheating case to the tune of Rs58 crore has been stuck for almost a year. The case is delayed as the investigating officer (IO) from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has failed to respond to notices issued by the magistrate court over a missing First Information Report (FIR).

The magistrate court, on January 22, issued a fresh notice to the IO to file his report on the missing documents. The defence lawyer, Dilip Shukla, told the FPJ, “It’s been almost a year since it came to the court’s notice that the documents are missing from the record. The IO has yet to submit his report even after repeated notices issued to him.” In July 2014, the trust had noticed that the funds to the tune of Rs58 crore kept in fixed deposits were siphoned off and subsequently diverted to other accounts.

This revelation led the EOW of the crime branch to a group that had cheated several other trusts and institutions. After the probe, the EOW filed a case against six accused in September 2014; namely Anil Pawar, Mohammad Fasiuddin, Roy Thomas, Rameshchandra Purohit, Santosh Gadage, and Anupam Thakur. The prosecution, after eight years, examined its first witness, Ganesh Shankaran, a trustee, on June 20, 2022. However, nothing moved for over three years, as the prosecution kept seeking adjournment on the ground of verification of certain documents.

On February 14, 2025, the prosecution resumed the examination of Shankaran. It was during his testimony that the court realised the original FIR was not on the record. Hence, the case was adjourned to March 13, 2025, with a direction to the prosecution to locate it. When the case came up for hearing on March 13, 2025, the public prosecutor was not available. Hence, the court issued a notice to the IO for the documents.

The case was further adjourned to June 18, 2025, when neither the public prosecutor nor the IO turned up. Hence, the court issued a fresh notice returnable on August 5, 2025. Thereafter, the court time and again issued notices to the IO and the prosecution. Until last month, the IO had yet not responded. The defence lawyer, Shukla, said the trial could not proceed further in the absence of the missing documents.

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