Ahmedabad

The Crime Branch of Ahmedabad police, which is investigating the case of alleged embezzlement of charity funds meant for Gujarat riot victims against disputed activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand has urged a local court here to add section 467(Forgery) and 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using a forged document as genuine ) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the FIR No-1/2014 filed against them earlier.

The two new sections of the IPC which have been requested to be added in the FIR in the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court provides for the minimum punishment of seven and three years respectively when read with section 466 (Forgery of record of Court or of public register) amd 470 (Forged document or electronic record), sources privy to matter said today.

Recently, Crime Branch filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing the anticipatory bail of Teesta and her husband not only on the grounds of funds utilized by them for personal luxury such as wine, whisky, cake, sanitary napkins, bollywood Movie CDs etc but also for “evading disclosure norms laid down by statute to conceal the misappropriation, unilaterally altering the prescribed form (Schedule IX) of the Income and Expenditure Statement”. These two IPC sections are related to fabricating evidence, forgery and tempering with public documents, the sources said.

The Investigating officers’ affidavit in para 14 (6) says that “The Petitioners (Teesta and Javed) are conscious of the massive fraud perpetrated by them. It was known to the Petitioners that receipt of salary by them of large quantum was grossly illegal and improper. Further the Petitioners were also aware that the illegal payments were capable of detection because of statutory requirements of disclosure of remuneration paid to trustees. Thus for example, Schedule IX of The Bombay Public Trust Act which consists of a prescribed form of income and expenditure account mandatorily required to be submitted to the Charity Commissioner. The said form in Schedule IX consists of an entry titled “Remuneration to trustees”, the sources said.

The Affidavit says that “up to 31-03-2009, this form was submitted by the Petitioners in the prescribed form with the prescribed entry but against the prescribed entry i.e. “Remuneration to trustees”, a nil amount was shown. After 2009, when the salary of both the Petitioners started increasing exponentially every year, the prescribed format was not submitted but instead a Schedule IX which suited the criminal design of the Petitioners was submitted. This doctored Schedule IX( not in prescribed form) did not contain the entry “Remuneration to trustees”. The motive was to suppress from the Charity Commissioner that the Petitioners were receiving not only salary but exorbitant salary, thus concealing one of the more detectable modes of siphoning the trust’s charitable funds.” Hence liable to punish under section 467 and 471 of IPC.

The Affidavit further said that “The Petitioners in addition to the offences alleged in the FIR are also of guilty of offences pertaining to concealing information that they were bound to disclose to a public servant i.e. the Charity Commissioner; fabricating evidence; forgery and tampering with public documents.”The IO has attached copies of these forged documents with the affidavit to prove the statement.

Owing to this development the Crime branch has added these two sections i.e 467 and 471 of IPC read with section 466 and 470 in which the minimum punishment is 7 and 3 years respectively, the sources said.

– DeshGujarat