COIMBATORE: The Fine Futures scam continues to confound the police as the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW), tasked with probing the Rs 800 crore fraud, now has to find Rs 20 lakh just to serve the copies of chargesheets to the accused.
Police sources, on condition of anonymity, told Express that the voluminous chargesheets, which run into well over five lakh pages, have to be produced to the four accused in the case. However, a single copy of the chargesheet could cost over Rs 5 lakh, leaving the police scratching their heads as to from where they can scrape together the funds. “The four accused have demanded that we produce hard copies of the chargesheet. We offered digital copies but they refused to accept them,” a police official said.
The EOW police had filed a preliminary chargesheet at the TNPID Court in 2013. That bit of documentation alone ran into over 7,000 pages, while an additional chargesheet, almost equivalent in the number of pages to the first one, was filed in 2014. Moreover, complaints from over 14,000 investors and names of more than 15,000 prosecution witness were added and 16,000 documents were attached. The police also expect to file a third additional chargesheet soon, with the addition of which the document trail could extend to over seven lakh pages.
The chargesheet in the Fine Futures scam is rumoured among police to be the most voluminous in the State. Sources stated that the police have now approached the Madras High Court Registrar, asking for his advise on how to sort out the issue. A source said, “The government has already allocated Rs 80,000 for the purpose of producing the chargesheets to the accused, but this is nowhere near enough.”
FIne Futures Scam FILE
Prime accused, A Senthil Kumar and M Vivek, owners and MDs of online portals promising lucrative returns on small investments, allegedly cheated Rs 800 crore from over 1.7 lakh investors. Two other accused, M Nithyanandan and R Sathyalakshmi, an accountant, are also accused of perpetrating the fraud.