A month later, Home Trade probe is where it began

A month after the state CID began its investigation in the Rs 400-crore Home Trade scam, this is what has been accomplished: neither CID off...

A month after the state CID began its investigation in the Rs 400-crore Home Trade scam, this is what has been accomplished: neither CID officials nor other police officials have contacted any of the seven organisations they should have. The investigation has so far been limited to the arrest of Home Trade CEO Sanjay Agarwal and his accomplices, and sealing his Vashi office.

RBI has not been approached by the investigators nor the Nabard for any kind of information. Sebi too has not been contacted though its role is peripheral. But information has not been sought even from Pune Stock Exchange in which Agarwal ‘creatively’ traded Home Trade shares to show that they were ‘live’.

Similarly, no contact has been established with other exchanges with whom Agarwal did business. As if this isn’t enough to raise doubts of competence or deliberate carelessness, the investigators have not contacted the various banks with whom Agarwal and directors of Home Trade maintained accounts, sources said, because this should have been the primary level of probe to find out how many and what transactions happened in their accounts. A bank in Pune had reportedly asked Agarwal to close his account because there was ‘suspicious movement’ in that account.

Sources say that investigators are struggling to understand the financial concepts and jugglery that Agarwal presided over for close to three years. The RBI, which has a Banking Frauds Commission, cannot take up the investigation on its own, unless requested by the state government. Even the CBI cannot technically step into the probe except to investigate the Seamen’s Provident Fund money being siphoned off by Home Trade.