Tata Finance Provides More Data To Cops On Pendse
Tata Finance Ltd (TFL) has filed "additional information" with the economic offences wing of the Mumbai police against the company's former managing director Dilip S Pendse alleging criminal breach of trust.
The "additional information" has been filed by the constituted attorney of Tata Finance, has been received in the office of the joint commissioner of Police (crime branch), Mumbai on October 31.
This application refers to the previous first information report (FIR) filed on August 6, 2001, and requests "that cases may be registered against all persons involved in these offences and immediate action taken on the basis of this FIR even if the investigation in the previous FIR) CR 276/2001 is not over."
The Tata application alleges that Pendse assisted in the dishonest misappropriation of funds by directors of the India Emerging Company Investment Ltd (IECIL) -- a subsidiary of Niskalp Investment and Trading Company Ltd (NITCL) -- leading to wrongful loss to the company. NITCL is the erstwhile subsidiary of Tata Finance.
Tata Finance officials refused to comment on the issue.
However, Harihar Bhave of advocate firm Bhave and Company, on behalf of its client Dilip Pendse said in a faxed communication to Business Standard that "no contract notes were backdated and Pendse has nothing to do with the alleged contract notes."
Bhave said: "The contract notes are always prepared by the brokers and none of the brokers involved in the transactions have disowned this fact. Hence there is no element of forgery in the alleged contract notes."
Bhave also said "the transaction (in respect of these shares) were entered into in September 2000 and the contract notes were issued accordingly."
Pendse's advocate also denied that India Emerging was a subsidiary of Niskalp at the relevant time.
According to the Tata application, a copy of which is in possession of Business Standard, India Emerging paid Rs 1,95,27,500 to stock brokers for the purchase of 2,15,000 of Tata Finance shares at a price of Rs 91 in the last week of March, 2001.
The price was in excess of the market price which was in the range of Rs 30 and Rs 35 at that time. Thus, a sum of Rs 1,29,00,000 was paid by the IECIL to the brokers in excess of the market value.
However, the contract notes and bills pertaining to the above deals represent that the transactions were done in the settlement periods September 1 to September 15, 2000, and September 9-September 16, 2000, when the Tata Finance scrip was around Rs 91.
The Tata Finance application also alleges that Anuradha Pendse, wife of Dilip Pendse, Nalini Properties Pvt Ltd, Anjudi Property and Investments Pvt Ltd and Anjali Beke sold 2,87,600 shares in March 2001.
Anuradha Pendse and Dilip Pendse's parents Sudhakar and Nalini Pendse are the directors of Nalini Properties Pvt Ltd.
Anjali Beke is a close friend of Dilip Pendse. She and her husband Dilip Beke were the directors of Anjudi Property and Investments Pvt Ltd.
The application alleges there was "complicity between Pendse and his associates with the two brokers".
"In order to support the dishonest transactions involving the criminal breach of trust, forged contract notes and bills were made and used as aforesaid with intent to cheat IECIL and Tata Finance.
Although there is no evidence available to me to show that the shares individually held by Dilip Pendse and his father Sudhakar Pendse were sold it does not absolve them from the liabilities for these offences because of active assistance and complicity," the Tata application alleges.
In the first FIR, Tatas had accused Pendse of embarking upon carry forward transactions between December, 2000 and March, 2001 in DSQ, Global Tele-Systems (now called GTL), Zee Telefilms and Pentamedia, leading to a loss of around Rs 30 crore in the last quarter of fiscal 2001 itself.
It had also alleged that Pendse and the other accused persons (B R Gazdar, A L Shilotri, A G Gaitonde, Milind Desai and P B Karyekar, all former employees of Tata Finance or its subsidiaries) had siphoned off funds for "personal benefit".
Pendse had also been accused of violating the Reserve Bank of India's prudential norms on two counts -- maintaining a lower than 12 per cent capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and lending over 25 per cent of Tata Finance's net worth to a single entity (Niskalp).