The CBI has sought sanction to prosecute six Karnataka officials, including two senior IPS officers posted in the state, as the agency plans to file a supplementary charge sheet detailing their alleged role in aiding the Rs 4,000-crore I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) ponzi scam, officials said Thursday.
It is alleged that IMA and its sister ponzi companies had lured gullible investors offering higher returns on their investment using Islamic ways, they said.
The CBI has written to the Karnataka government seeking nod for prosecuting IPS officers Hemant Nimbalkar of 1998 batch and Ajay Hilori of 2008 batch. The residences of the two officers were searched by the CBI earlier this year, they said.
While Nimbalkar was posted as the then Inspector General of Economic Offences, Hilori was the then Deputy Commissioner of East Bengaluru, the sources said.
Besides, the CBI has also sought similar sanction for the then Deputy Superintendent of Police CID EB Sridhara, Inspector and SHO Commercial Street Police Station M Ramesh and sub-inpector of the station P Gowrishankar and the then Assistant Commissioner Bengaluru North Sub Division LC Nagaraj.
Sridhara was the inquiry officer and Hemant Nimbalkar was the supervisory officer in the enquiry done by CID EOW into activities of IMA group entities, the sources said.
The agency has found in its probe so far that more than Rs 4000 crore of deposits were illegally raised from lakhs of innocent investors, but the CID of the state gave a clean chit to the company and its promoter-director Mohammed Mansoor Khan.
As a result, activities of IMA group continued unhindered which facilitated collection of hundreds of crore from thousands of innocent persons, the agency alleged.
Nagaraj also enquired into the affairs of IMA and gave a clean chit without conducting proper probe.
The clean chit was given on the grounds that no unauthorised deposits were collected and investments of partners, limited liability, partnership are exempted under KPID Act, the agency has found, they said.
The agency probe shows that Hilori, directly supervising the work of Ramesh and Gowrishankar, had failed to register cases in spite of receiving written complaints from the state government officials and social activists, the sources said.