Special court frames charges in ponzi case

Panchkula, September 29

A special court here has framed charges in a 2019 money laundering case, amounting nearly Rs3,000 crore. About 31 lakh investors were allegedly cheated by way of a multi-level marketing by a Haryana-based company – Future Maker Life Care Private Limited – in a ponzi scheme.

The charges were framed under Section 4, PMLA, read with Section 70 and Section 3 of the Act. The PMLA court while framing the charges said from 2015 onwards, the accused through its directors Bansi Lal and Radhey Shyam, along with others, directly or indirectly and knowingly indulged in duping various persons in the guise of giving unrealistic return to them and actively connected with the proceeds of crime amounting to Rs2,959.46 crore.

Special Judge Dr Sushil Kumar Garg observed: “From 2015 onwards, all the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy while indulging and knowingly assisting… being a party and actually involved in the process of cheating… and thereby cheated and duped various persons.”

The 22 accused in the case, of which one person has died, even bought immovable properties worth Rs9,08,29,296, the court added. On April 6 this year, the court had granted anticipatory bail to Bansi Lal and Radhe Shyam. Earlier, the court had also granted anticipatory bail to 10 other accused, including Sunil Sharma, Deepak Sharma, Manish Grover, Ram Singh, Devi Lal, Suman Devi, Prem Kumar, Sona Devi, Sohan Lal and Bhateri Devi. — TNS