CHENNAI: More than 103 kg of gold worth at least 45 million rupees seized in a raid by the IWC and kept in its “safe custody” have disappeared. This was made public on Friday when the Madras High Court ordered an investigation into CB-CID of Tamil Nadu.
The missing gold is part of 400.5 kg in bullion and ornaments seized by the IWC in 2012 when it raided the Chennai office of Surana Corporation Ltd. The gold was kept in the safes and vaults of Surana under the lock and seal of the CBI. The central agency said it had handed over the 72 keys to the safes and vaults to Chennai’s main special court for CBI cases.
The CBI stated that during the seizure the gold bars were weighed in their entirety, but when they were handed over to the liquidator, designated for the settlement of debts between Surana and SBI, they were weighed individually and that was the reason for the discrepancy.
Refusing to accept the submission, Judge Prakash ordered a CB-CID investigation by an officer with the rank of police superintendent to be completed in six months.
The CBI told Judge Prakash that his prestige would “go down” if the investigation is carried out by local police. To which Judge Prakash said: “… the law does not sanction such an inference. All police officers must be trusted, and it is not in your mouth to say that CBI has special horns, while local police only have tails.
While processing the case, the CBI accused Minerals & Metals Trading Corporation of India (MMTC) officials of showing undue favor to Surana in importing gold and silver. Subsequently, the IWC concluded that the gold was not related to a corruption case and that it had, however, been imported in violation of Foreign Trade Policy (FTP). Therefore, in 2013 a separate case was registered and the seized gold was transferred to the new case file. Subsequently, the CBI concluded the investigation and presented a closing report, maintaining that the defendant had not committed any crime, but, by issuing the certificate of agency nominated to Surana, had violated certain circulars, for which departmental action was recommended against some officials.
The agency also asked the special court to transfer the gold to the office of the director general of foreign trade (DGFT), as ownership of the gold is subject to the outcome of the departmental investigation. Injured, Surana challenged the transfer of gold to DGFT.
Meanwhile, the SBI initiated insolvency proceedings against Surana for outstanding installments of Rs 1,160 million. SBI moved the court asking for the gold. On December 12, 2017, SBI and Surana filed a memorandum of engagement in court and sought an order to deliver the gold to SBI, which CBI opposed.
On July 16, 2019, the court ordered the parties to go to the NCLT before which insolvency proceedings are pending to decide the ownership of the gold. However, CBI was instructed to hand over possession of the gold to SBI.
On December 27, 2019, the NCLT ordered the delivery of the gold to the official liquidator in the presence of SBI. To everyone’s surprise and shock, the total gold found weighed only 296,606 kg. There was a shortage of 103,864 kg, which the CBI could not adequately explain.
The liquidator then moved to the higher court, which approved the order on Friday.
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