The charge sheet was filed a day after Goswami moved to the Bombay High Court to request a stay of the investigation and the filing of the charge sheet.
The police case was based on a suicide note saying that Naik, a 53-year-old interior designer, and his mother had decided to end their lives, as the owners of three companies had not settled payments totaling 5 , 4 million rupees because of them – ARG Outlier (which operates Republic TV), Feroz Shaikh from IcastX / Skimedia and Neetish Sarda from Smartworks.
Naik and his mother were found dead on their Alibaug farm on May 5, 2018. A suicide note written in English by Naik blamed the trio for not paying his debts. Naik was the CEO of Concord Design Private Ltd, a Mumbai-based architecture and interior design firm, and his mother was on the firm’s board of directors.
The charge sheet indicated that the three defendants had given contract work of interior design, civil and electrical works, plumbing and engineering consulting for their respective offices according to work order. “The deceased had done all the work according to the work order. The defendant gave additional work that the deceased completed. Seeing the extra work, it was necessary to make changes to the quantity invoice, but the trio made him work more and paid him less, ”said the charge sheet.
They escalated interior design, civil work and other contract work at their respective offices at Naik’s firm and delayed payments or did not pay him on time, according to the charge sheet.
It also indicated that the deceased had brought raw materials to carry out the construction and interior works in their respective companies. The three defendants, in an attempt not to pay the deceased, issued debit notes and did not take Naik’s signatures on any of these debit notes, according to the charge sheet.
“The defendant did not pay money and continued to delay his payments. And because of all this, customers from whom Naik had brought raw materials began calling him for their money. In an attempt to get his dues back, Naik kept meeting with the three defendants, sending them emails, text messages, and calling them to ask them to pay their dues, but they were late / didn’t pay, leading to mental harassment that led Naik to drink ) extreme step, ”said the charge sheet.
Alibaug Police filed the 1,914-page charge sheet with the Alibaug District Magistrates Court on Friday against Republic TV’s Goswami, Shaikh and Sarda.
All three were arrested on November 4 and later released on bail by order of the Supreme Court. The police filed the charge sheet on the 30th day of the arrest under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, which refers to incitement to suicide. The section draws a 10-year prison sentence and a fine. In the charge sheet, the police had also added Section 109 of the IPC that talks about the punishment for complicity if the act instigated is committed accordingly and where its punishment is not expressly established.
Police said there are about 65 witnesses, and some of the key witnesses have even given statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before a magistrate. These statements can be treated as evidence. The Police have attached copies of the contractual agreements between the deceased and the defendants’ companies, the raw material invoices, promissory notes, bank statements that show the flow of financial transactions and the exchange of emails, WhatsApp and other text messages related to work and payments.
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