The Greater Chennai police on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that it was yet to register a First Information Report (FIR) on a complaint lodged by cricketer Harbhajan Singh on August 26 claiming that he had fallen victim to a fraud played by a Chennai-based partnership firm, to which he had extended an interest bearing loan of ₹4 crore.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira was told by Additional Public Prosecutor M. Mohamed Riyaz that only a preliminary inquiry had been initiated on the basis of the complaint and that one of the partners of the firm, G. Mahesh, had rushed to court seeking anticipatory bail immediately after receipt of summons asking him to appear for inquiry.
After recording his submission, the judge directed the petitioner to cooperate with the inquiry by producing all relevant documents and other materials in his possession and approach the court later if an FIR gets registered.
In his complaint, Mr. Singh stated that the petitioner had sought an interest bearing loan of ₹4 crore for the real estate business done by him through the firm called Aaura Mega Investments. Accordingly, he extended the loan through two cheques (one for ₹1 crore and another for ₹3 crore) on condition that it should be repaid within 12 months.
However, after 12 months, even the interest was not paid fully and the petitioner reportedly stopped answering the cricketer’s phone calls. After applying pressure, Mr. Singh recovered ₹2 crore, besides obtaining eight post-dated cheques for ₹25 lakh each in February. The very first cheque bounced last month, forcing him to lodge the complaint.
On the other hand, the anticipatory bail petitioner told the court he had availed the loan from the cricketer in 2015 and deposited with him the original title deeds of a property at Thalambur near here as security. Further, a power of attorney was also executed in favour of the cricketer at the Sub-Registrar’s office in Tiruporur.
Claiming to have repaid ₹4.05 crore so far, the petitioner claimed that the process of reconciliation of account towards consolidation of the interest component was going on at present.
He also said that eight cheques were issued to the cricketer in February this year as further security towards repayment of the interest component.
Stating that negotiations with respect to consolidation of interest were hindered due to COVID-19, the petitioner said that the cricketer, in the meantime, presented one of the cheques for encashment on August 17.
The bank did not honour the cheque because the petitioner had issued instruction to stop payment.
The petitioner asserted that he did not intend to cheat the cricketer, and that it was a case of a simple loan transaction between them.
