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Rs 25-crore bank draft fraud: Cops arrest trustee of education body
Two months after a complaint was lodged against former Union Industry Minister Vallabh Kathiriya’s brother, Chhagan, and three others for trying to deposit a fake draft of Rs 25 crore, the police today arrested Joseph Rozario, trustee of Rajkot-based Rozario Educational and Charitable Trust.
Preliminary interrogation has revealed that Kathiriya was to get Rs 1.5 crore as commission as per government rule on donations, if the draft was cleared. The complaint was filed by ICICI Bank manager Nirav Shah against Chhagan, Rozario, Sanjay Mondka and Himanshu Pandya for trying to encash Rs 25 crore in the Rozario Trust through a bogus draft.
The police said Mondka and Pandya, who are from Surat and Vadodara respectively, promised Chhagan, who runs an AIDS control NGO called Life Line Health Organisation, to secure a huge donation. For the same purpose, Chhagan needed an account exempted from income tax, which was provided by Rozario. The police are probing the role of the accused.
The police said that bank officials got suspicious about the colour and paper quality of the draft dated December 26, 2009 and issued by Tata Power Trading Company, Mumbai.
The draft was in favour of Rozario Trust and was deposited by Joseph Rozario on December 30.
The ICICI Rajkot branch had contacted Vishal Parekh, the finance manager of Tata Power Trading Company, who denied issuing any donation draft to any trust.
The police said that when called by the bank, Rozaria told the ICICI authorities that it was Chhagan’s NGO that was getting the donation, but he contacted him because his trust is exempted from income tax.
Further probe revealed that Chhagan had met Mondka and Pandya at the office of Gujarat State Aids Control Society in Ahmedabad.
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