BENGALURU: Former Indian badminton ace Prakash Padukone and his family members moved the Karnataka High Court against sudden freezing of their account jointly held by them in IDBI Bank in relation to the probe taken up by Banashankari police into Vikram Investments scam.
Hearing the petition filed by Prakash Padukone, his wife Ujjala Padukone and their daughter Anisha Padukone, all residing on Nandidurga Road in the city, Justice AS Bopanna on Wednesday ordered notice to the state through Banashankari police and to the Malleswaram branch of the IDBI Bank Limited. The judge also asked the government advocate to get instructions from the police department in the matter.
The petitioners — Padukone and his family members — contended that they had not been served any notice about freezing of their account either by the police or the bank.
They were not even informed of the account freeze soon after the action. Even assuming that there is some illegality in the money paid to them, but not conceding, the petitioners were not given an opportunity to be able to continue using their account, they claimed.
Aggrieved by the alleged illegal actions of the bank and the manner in which they were deprived of their right to use and access their account with IDBI bank, they prayed the court to quash the communication dated March 16, 2018 issued by the police to the IDBI bank and declare the freezing of the account as illegal and unconstitutional.
According to the petition, an agent, Sutram Suresh, who was also a former sports journalist, had advised Padukone to invest in a firm that he knew dealt with commodities investment as it would give good returns on investments.
Based on his assurances, Padukone had invested some money in 2011 with initial understanding that he would be given monthly returns. The returns were being credited to the said account directly. Later, the agent suggested to Padukone that he opt for a less frequent payment so that the returns were even better. Believing him, Padukone agreed to this too.
In February 2017, the agent asked Padukone to invest a very huge sum of money. Being a senior citizen person, he did not want to make such an investment but took the advice of an expert who advised him that commodities investments were high-risk investments and that he should not have any exposure in such investments at this age.
Faced with this advice and the request for larger investments from the agent, Padukone pulled out his investment in March 2017. On receiving all the money, he also declared and paid taxes, besides paying the commission demanded by the agent.
To their utter shock, on March 17, 2018, Padukone, his wife and daughter learnt orally from IDBI bank that their account had been frozen. They were shocked as they had always led an upright life. The bank did not divulge details either, nor did the petitioners get any notice.
When Padukone contacted the bank and asked for a clarification, the bank authorities orally informed that the freeze had been ordered by the Banashankari police. He was disturbed since there had never been any blemish in his life, leave alone having any brush with the law.
Badminton legend did not get proper reply from bank
On March 19, 2018, Padukone wrote to the bank asking for the account to be released from the freeze, since he had orally been told that the IDBI bank had received a notice under Section 91 of the CrPC relating to Vikram investments. However, there was no proper response to the letter dated March 19, 2018 written by Padukone.
On March 23, 2018, Padukone wrote another letter to the bank, reiterating that the bank had not even given him a copy of the letter purportedly issued by the police to the bank. Padukone pointed out that he had also issued cheques that came to be dishonoured, owing to this sudden and illegal freezing, which was done without notice to him. The bank only orally communicated to him about the developments.