COIMBATORE: The Second Additional District Court (CBI Cases) in Coimbatore on Tuesday framed charges against five persons, including IPS officer Pramod Kumar, in connection with an extortion linked to the multi-crore Paazee forex scam.
Tirupur Central Crime Branch registered a case against the trading firm in 2009 for cheating depositors of Rs 930.71 crore.
The court framed charges against Kumar, former DSP of Tirupur town N Rajendran, former inspector of Tirupur central crime branch V Mohanraj in connection with the kidnapping of the woman director of Paazee Forex Trading India Private Limited for extorting Rs 3.10 crore a decade ago. One of the directors, A Kamalavalli, went missing and later claimed that police officials abducted her and she was allegedly released after Rs 3.10 crore was paid to them.
The case was transferred to CB-CID, and CBI took over the case in 2011. It arrested Pramod Kumar, who was working as IGP, West Zone Coimbatore, in 2012. Four more suspects - Rajendran, Mohanraj, John Prabhakar alias Annachi, a friend of the IPS Officer from Chennai, and N Senthil Kumar from Tirupur -- were arrested in connection with the case. Inspector Shanmugaiah turned approver. The Economic Offences Wing of the CBI filed a chargesheet against the five in 2013. However, the court was not able to frame charges against them.
The Madras High Court ordered the lower court to speed up the trial. Kumar and Mohanraj filed a quash petition before the court. Kumar and four others appeared before the court on Tuesday morning and the defence counsel told the court that the quash petition was to be coming up for hearing on Tuesday evening at the Madras High Court. So, the lower court postponed the framing of charges until evening. Meanwhile, the Madras High Court dismissed the quash petition.
The five persons appeared before the II Additional District Court (CBI Cases) around 4.30 pm on Tuesday and it framed charges against them. Judge S Govindharajan ordered the CBI to submit the list of prosecution witnesses before the court on December 8.