The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on Thursday filed seven separate charge sheets against Minister for Forests C.P. Yogeshwar for 24 different offences such as corporate fraud, criminal conspiracy, forgery, and cheating related to the dealings of his company Megacity (Bangalore) Developers and Builders Ltd. (MDBL). While six charge sheets for 16 offences punishable under provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) were filed before the 4th Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, the charge sheet for eight offences under provisions of the Companies Act, 1959 was filed before the Special Court for Economic Offences in Bangalore, said B.P. Puttasiddaiah, Senior Standing Counsel of the Union Government, who submitted the charge sheets to the court on behalf of the SFIO.
The charge sheets were filed based on the report (dated July 30, 2011) of the SFIO investigation since 2009 following a complaint given by MDBL Site Members' Welfare Association president Ravindra Beleyur.
The charge sheets filed by the SFIO are comprehensive compared with the one filed by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) against him in 2010, after the Bharatiya Janata Party Government came to power. The CID had charged him under only two sections of the IPC.
Apart from Mr. Yogeshwar, his wife, Manju Kumari, brother C.P. Gangadhareshwar, P. Mahadevaiah, H.R. Ramesh, Charantimath, Sujatha Charantimath, who were all part of MDBL, and M. Sambasiva Rao, a statutory auditor of the company, were named as accused in the charge sheets.
The core charges under the IPC include siphoning off about Rs. 37 crore from the company and cheating thousands of people who had paid money for sites in the company's Vajragiri Township project; forging of about 450 sale agreements to show that about Rs. 37 crore was paid to landowners to buy their land and using this money for personal matters.
