The State Home Department in Maharashtra is gearing up for a significant overhaul of its top police leadership, including the position of Director General of Police (DGP) and Police Commissioners of Nagpur and Thane. The impending retirement of the current DGP, Rajnish Seth, on December 31 has prompted the department to commence the process of selecting his successor.A top rank official said that several prominent names have emerged as contenders for the esteemed position of State DGP. The frontrunner is Senior IPS Officer Rashmi Shukla, who currently serves as the Director General (DG) of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar is also a strong candidate for the role. Other notable contenders include Thane CP Jaijeet Singh, DG ATS Sadanand Date, DG Police Housing Sandeep Bishnoi, DG Railway Pradnya Sarvade, Additional Director of NIA Atulchandra Kulkarni, and DG State Security Corporation Bipin Kumar Singh, he said. He further stated that the State Home
- Crores invested with Mumbai builders
- Cops trying to recover money from trusts
By Dheeraj Fartode
Prashant Wasankar, presently cooling heels behind bar for duping thousands of gullible investors and who failed to return money to his investors, had donated Rs 3.40 crore in 2012-13 to three charitable trusts, connected to political big-wigs of then ruling alliance. The charitable trusts are Pravara Medical Trust, DY Patil International Academy and DY Patil Sports Academy related to present Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and former governor of Bihar and Congress leader D Y Patil. The investigating machinery is tracing the money diverted by Wasankar to various individuals and institutions and came across this politically sensitive information. Sources informed that Wasankar had given hundreds of crore to Mumbai based builders. The money was used in construction business.
After detecting the financial transactions, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Nagpur City Police had written a letter to these three institutions and asked them to file reply. The three institutions in their response claimed that their institutions were charitable trusts and the money was used for charitable purpose only.
Sources informed that the financial transactions took place between year 2012 and 2013 and Wasankar Wealth Management Ltd had used RTGS route for the money transfer. The Hitavada learnt that a sum of Rs One crore was transferred to Pravara Medical Trust on September 2, 2013. DY Patil International Academy received Rs One crore on 20 November 2012 and Rs 40 lakh on August 26, 2013. Similarly, Rs One crore transferred to account of DY Patil Sports Academy on February 17, 2012 as donation.
Sources revealed that Wasankar had donated the money to these institutions to strengthen his political relations with big-wigs in ruling party as both leaders -- Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil (he was cabinet minister) and Satej alias Bunty Patil (Minister of State for Home) were in power
Victims of Wasankar who are fighting a long drawn legal battle to get their money back, were astonished to know about these generous donations made by Wasankar. When many retired persons whose life-long savings were invested with Wasankar and requested him to refund their money, he failed to pay a single penny to such investors. On the contrary, the depositors were wooed with better returns and persuaded to stay invested with the firm. The investors had asked the EoW sleuths to go deeper and find out the truth and real intention behind donating the money to three trusts belonging to then ruling party leaders. EoW officials were tightlipped about entire episode and refused to reveal anything. However, the top officials confirmed the transaction and ongoing process to obtain justification from the trusts.
The EoW is also examining the legal provision as to whether a limited company can donate such a huge sum without consent of the shareholders under the new Companies Act. Encouraged by the tough stance taken by the High Court which refused to show any leniency towards economic fraudsters, the cops are also tracing the whereabouts of Rs 51.58 crore transferred months before arrest. The High Court had noted that there was no permission from Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to accept the deposit and deal with money of investors and had observed that absence of SEBI’s permission and absence of registration with RBI, makes this matter very serious as Wasankar and his firms were not legally entitled to collect any deposit from any of the depositors or investors and park it with Wasankar Investments Limited.
Reliable sources informed that Prashant Wasankar had given Rs 50 lakh to one Seema Gupta and this fact came to fore when Income Tax department conducted a raid at her residence. The cops discovered the note of the transaction. Cops are investigating the reason for these unexplained transaction.
Arrested CA not co-operating
Investigators believe that Parag Hangekar had played important role in entire scam. Hangekar is not co-operating with cops and maintained that he has done nothing except extending this professional services. Cops believe that Hangekar is privy to many secrets and clandestine transactions and deliberately refusing to co-operate as he is sure that EoW sleuths would not be able to open password protected digital documents. But to his misfortune, the investigators have cracked the passwords and studying the encrypted digital documents. The cops found that Wasankar had maintained Rs 65 lakh as personnel cash and diverted a large sum money to Mumbai based builders.
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