Court directs CBI to supply docs to Pearls Group CMD, others

A Delhi court today directed CBI to supply complete documents along with the charge sheet to Pearls Group CMD Nirmal Singh Bhangoo and five others, who were arrested in connection with alleged swindling of Rs 45,000 crore from over five crore investors.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Charu Aggarwal asked the CBI investigating officer to give all deficient documents annexed with the charge sheet to the accused, who told the court that they have not received the complete set.
The court fixed May 9 for completing the process of scrutiny of documents and further proceedings in the case.
Advocate Manish Jain and Vijay Aggarwal, who appeared for Bhangoo, moved an application under Section 207 of the CrPC seeking copies of the documents.

The court had earlier taken cognisance on the charge sheet filed in the case on April 7.
The charge sheet was filed against Bhangoo, his firms Pearl Agrotech Corporation Ltd (PACL), Pearls Golden Forest Ltd (PGF), and its promoters and directors Sukhdev Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Subrata Bhattacharya under various sections of the IPC and the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.

CBI has charged the accused for various alleged offences including criminal conspiracy, dishonestly receiving stolen property, cheating and forgery under the IPC and under sections 4 and 5 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.

The four individual accused, arrested on January 8 after two years of CBI probe ordered by the Supreme Court in the country's largest reported ponzi scam, are presently in judicial custody.
During the probe in the last two years, CBI has said it has found 1,300 bank accounts of the suspect company, their directors and associated firms.
CBI had claimed that huge money was bungled by accused by duping many investors by luring them with attractive land deals and it had frozen the group's assets, mostly fixed deposit receipts, to the tune of Rs 280 crore and an additional Rs 108 crore was deposited with Delhi High Court.

CBI had said it has managed to seize 20,000 property documents believed to be of Rs 5,000 crore of purchase value. It is estimated by CBI that these properties could be about Rs 1.85 lakh crore, going by the present market rates.
CBI has claimed in the FIR that PACL and PGF were running the schemes illegally and both firms were allegedly engaged in fraudulent activities including forgery in their operations.