Team Herald
PANJIM: One of the close aides of Chetan Dessai, who is looking after his business activities in Ponda, is apparently on the run after his boss has been jailed. Sources stated that he is on the radar of the Economic Offence Cell (EOC) for physically withdrawing the money from the bank.
Police, who are interrogating Dessai along with GCA Secretary Vinod Phadke and Treasurer Akbar Mulla, are trying to piece the information together to get evidence against the trio.
The fate of all three senior GCA officials will be decided tomorrow in the court when their bail plea would be heard.
Since the withdrawal has happened almost a decade back, it is becoming difficult for the police to map the entire sequence of event. One of the close aides of Dessai, who is currently missing, has been a major link to uncover the entire case of fraud.
The missing aide was also handling the affairs of Dessai’s cricket clubs.
Police feel that the entire mystery of fraud would be uncovered once they apprehend this important link.
As a part of investigation, police raided the office of GCA during the entire day and also checked Dessai’s residences at Caranzalem. They, however, failed to lay their hands on the minutes of the meeting book which is a crucial evidence to prove involvement of the trio in the case.
A senior police official stated that the investigation in this case is still at primary stage as they are yet to recover vital evidences linked to it. One of the Bank managers, whose name has been withheld by the police, has already deposed against the trio. The manager has been saved from being co-accused in the case as she has assured full cooperation to the investigation agency.
The investigating officer has also checked the financial transactions of the trio during the probe trying to ascertain the trail of money which is amounting to Rs 3.13 crore.
The trio were arrested for alleged misappropriation of over Rs three crore belonging to the GCA. The EOW had filed an FIR against the trio on June 3 after GCA life member Vilas Desai filed a complaint accusing Dessai and the other two of forging signatures and opening bank accounts to siphon off the association’s money.
They allegedly opened accounts between October 23, 2006, and May 23, 2008, when GCA was headed by Dayanand Narvekar, Dessai was its secretary and Phadke the treasurer.
They prepared forged documents as well as a resolution of GCA and submitted it to the Development Credit Bank to open an account and then encashed a cheque of Rs 2.87 crore given by BCCI to the GCA, the complaint says.
The three are further alleged to have forged signatures and withdrawn Rs 26 lakh from the Federal Bank on the pretext of making payment to a sports goods company called ‘Hako Enterprise’.
Meanwhile, several club members met Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in Panjim today seeking his intervention in the matter. The club members demanded that an administrator be appointed on the cricketing body, disallowing the trio to join back the office again. Parrikar has assured them to look into the matter.
