PANAJI: Economic offences cell of the Goa police has filed charge-sheet against former GCA president Dayanand Narvekar, incumbent president Chetan Dessai, secretary Vinod Phadke and the then treasurer Akbar Mulla in the alleged Rs 3.13-crore fraud in the Goa Cricket Association.
The 1036-page charge-sheet has been filed under various charges of the Indian Penal Code, including criminal breach of trust, forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy, before the chief judicial magistrate, Panaji.
The police have relied on 69 witnesses including three investigating police officers – police inspectors Shivram Vaigankar and Ashish Shirodkar, and police sub-inspector Prassana Bhagat.
The police had also recorded statement of four witnesses before a magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC.
In June last year the EOC had registered the FIR against Dessai, Phadke and Mulla. The accused had been arrested on June 15 and released on conditional bail on June 24, 2016.
Incidentally Narvekar had not been named in the FIR but during the course of investigation the police smelt his alleged role, and as such he has been named as an accused in the charge-sheet, sources have said.
According to the police, a bank account was opened illegally in the Development Credit Bank in the city in April 2007, only to encash a cheque of Rs 2.87 crore received from the BCCI.
The money was subsequently withdrawn in the period of one year through bearer cheques, the police had said.
Dessai, Phadke and Mulla have also been accused of siphoning off Rs 26 lakh of the GCA from another bank account of the state cricket body.
The police said Narvekar was the GCA president when the alleged incident had occurred and that he was in the know of the cheque of Rs 2.87 crore, which had been issued to the GCA by the BCCI.
Narvekar had attended the BCCI meeting in which it was decided to send Rs 2.87 crore to the GCA, the police have claimed adding that the money reflected in the BCCI audit but not so at the GCA. After completing the probe, the EOC had referred the case to the directorate of prosecution for legal opinion and it said the case was fit for filing a charge-sheet, an EOC officer had informed.
The forensic report on signatures of the accused in the case were said to be negative. However, the police claimed that it won’t have any effect on the case as they have other pieces of evidence against the accused.
Apart from this case, last month the EOC had registered another FIR against Narvekar, Dessai, Phadke and Mulla in the alleged Rs 1-crore scam in the GCA.
The accused have been granted conditional bail in the case.
The EOC is also conducting a preliminary inquiry into the alleged Rs 8-lakh fraud in the GCA.