The Supreme Court today rejected the anticipatory bail application filed by a woman accused of running a ponzi scheme. Petitioner Rashmi Manohar Hiranandani had challenged the Bombay High Court’s denial of her pre-arrest bail application. (RASHMI MANOHAR HIRANANDANI Versus THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA).
On Friday, the bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Hiranandani, who is an agent /promoter of Smart Vision Product India Pvt Ltd, involved in introducing prospective investors to their scheme of Richhood Club and provided information pertaining to 3 phases of the scheme and in this manner, duped several investors of their money.
Advocate Shivan Desai sought pre-arrest protection for Hiranandani from the Apex Court, but the plea went in vain, since the Bench observed that this kind of matter contains serious allegations, and dismissed the anticipatory bail plea.
An FIR had been registered against Hiranandani under Sections 420, 409 r/w 34 of the Indian Penal Code and under Sections 3, 4 and 6 of The Prize Chits and Money Circulation (Banning) Act, 1978.
The petitioner’s counsel submitted that she has herself lost her money in such schemes and had not induced investors to invest in this scheme. The statement of investors making similar averments against Hiranandani are on record and the total sum is more than Rs 80 lakh as submitted by the APP for the state before the High Court.
The High Court reasoned that the account statement of the petitioner shows that on many occasions, the amounts were deposited in the petitioner’s account through cash deposits and immediately they were transferred to the account of Pratiksha Mote, who was connected to Smart Vision. This was going on since April 2020 i.e. since prior to the seminar which was held in November 2020. The petitioner was not merely associated with Richhood Club for future schemes, but she was actively participating in accepting deposits, as far as Smart Vision is concerned. In view of this matter, considering seriousness of the allegations, custodial interrogation of the applicant is necessary to find out the money trail and modus operandi in this case.
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The facts of the case are that the complainant namely Rajaram Shankar Gholap came to know of Smart Vision Product India Pvt. Ltd. Pratiksha Mote and Salil Gaus were Directors and MCMD of the company. Hiranandani was Agent/Promoter of the said company. The said company had started some scheme.
Mote told the informant/Gholap that if he deposits certain amount for a certain fixed period, the informant would get a larger amount. The informant invested Rs 1,95,000 with that company. He was not issued any receipt. Thereafter he again invested Rs 2,08,000 in another scheme, for which he was promised returns of Rs 4,80,000. Thus, in all, he invested Rs 4,03,000. But barring Rs 30,000 nothing was returned to him. The FIR mentions that there were other investors who were similarly duped and they had lost their money.