Munde wants every CRB firm punished

MUMBAI, May 29: Besides freezing their bank accounts, the United Front government should immediately appoint official liquidators on all th...

MUMBAI, May 29: Besides freezing their bank accounts, the United Front government should immediately appoint official liquidators on all the 100-odd financial companies directly and indirectly controlled by C R Bhansali, Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde demanded today.

“Since the Reserve Bank of India has expressed its inability to concede our request, I will personally speak to Finance Minister P Chidambaram today itself,” he told mediapersons after a high-level meeting.

He said it was unfortunate that the RBI had appointed official liquidators on only one company instead of all of Bhansali’s companies listed under the Bombay Stock Exchange.

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Munde said while his government had set up a special task force headed by joint commissioner of police (Crime) Ranjit Sharma, a high-level team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was also coming here to probe into the multi-crore scandal. Sharma will be assisted by deputy inspector-general of police S P S Yadav and deputy commissioners Hemant Karkare and Datta Padsalgikar.

Confirming that all the seven directors of the CRB Capital Markets including its chairman, Bhansali, and his wife Manjula are absconding, Munde said specific instructions have been given to the investigating officials to trace them. “Since four of the directors are from other states, the directors-general of police of those states have been alerted,” he announced.

Munde said it was also essential to find out how Bhansali floated such a large number of financial institutions. “As per the official rules, the registration fees for floating such a company was Rs 25 lakh. Subsequently, the fee was raised to Rs 3 crore. In Bhansali’s case, it was observed that he overnight floated several companies just one day before the revised notification was issued.”

Munde said while the Reserve Bank of India has received 400 complaints, the Mumbai police have registered 209 complaints against CRB. “I have asked the RBI officials to take note of all the complaints received by the Mumbai police.

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"I have also asked them to set up a special cell in the RBI to coordinate with the Mumbai police,” he added.

Earlier, Munde had a long meeting with officials of the RBI (P V Subbarao, general manager, and P Bandopadhyaya, assistant general manager), the Industrial Development Bank of India (P V Narasimhan, executive director), the Bombay Stock Exchange (M G Damani, president); R Vasudevan, registrar of companies, the National Stock Exchange, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Senior BJP leader Kirit Somaiyya was present on behalf of CRB investors.