Mumbai: The Maharashtra government wants to speed up the process of attaching properties of firms involved in cheating and swindling investors’ money. It has stipulated specific deadlines for the police and district collectors, among other authorities, to submit proposals to issue a government notification necessary for attaching such properties.
The state government has given district collectors 10 working days to respond to such proposals with recommendations and another 10 days to the joint commissioner of police or additional director general of police to scrutinise the proposals and submit them to the government for issuing orders.
The state home department issued an order to this effect on Tuesday. The decision was taken after the government noted delays in receiving proposals from the administration, which slowed down the process of delivering justice to victims, officials said.
In 1999, the state government had introduced a legislation to curb incidents of fraud through Ponzi schemes, which were impacting investors mainly from the middle class and people from poor economic backgrounds. The act empowered the government to issue an order to attach the money or the properties of the accused firms and their directors.
However, the properties can be attached only by issuing a government notification after senior police officers—either the joint commissioner of police (Economic Offences Wing) or the joint commissioner of police (Law and Order) in Mumbai, and the superintendent of police for the rest of the state—submit a proposal for the same.
Once the proposal is moved, the district collector is expected to verify the details and return the file to the concerned police officers with their recommendations.
“The district collector, after verifying the proposal, must process it along with all necessary recommendations, and return the file within 10 working days to the concerned police officials,” stated the order issued on Tuesday. “It shall be the responsibility of the investigating officer of the concerned offence to obtain the proposal with necessary recommendations from the office of the district collector,” the order said.
After receiving the proposal, the concerned police officers are expected to submit the proposal to the additional director general of police (Economic Offences Wing). “The additional director general of police (Economic Offences Wing), Maharashtra, shall examine or scrutinise the proposal received along with the recommendations of the district collector and shall submit the proposal to the government within 10 working days,” the order said.
However, while following this procedure, the government observed that it was not receiving the proposals within the expected timeframe, either because of a delay from the district collector or the additional director general of police (Economic Offences Wing), said a senior official from the state home department.
In some cases, the government receives a proposal from only one office, either from the district collector or from the EOW, and a significant delay occurs in receiving the corresponding proposal from the other office, the official added.
“It has been found that if any discrepancies are noticed, a considerable amount of time is lost in getting clarifications from the respective offices. Following this, the fresh order has been issued to streamline the process and proposals at the earliest for further action,” the official said. This is why the government decided to step in.
The move comes against the backdrop of recent cases such as the Torres jewellery fraud. The brand’s parent company, Platinum Hern Pvt Ltd, was accused of cheating investors of crores of rupees through a combination of Ponzi and multi-level marketing schemes. The firm duped investors by luring them with promises of 2%-9% weekly returns on investments in jewellery and gemstones, while misleading them with inflated prices and false appreciation claims.