Mumbai: The special CBI court has sentenced a former general manager of New India Assurance (NIA) Company, Dr Anand Mittal, to four years in jail for misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 162 crore from March 2010 to December 2014. Mittal was charged for corruption by the CBI in September 2016.
About The Case
At the time of investigation, the agency had attached a bank account held by Mittal in Hisar. After conviction, the court ordered confiscation of Rs 1.30 crore in the said account. As per the prosecution case, Mittal was deputed as the MD of M/s Prestige Assurance PLC (PA) Lagos, Nigeria, a subsidiary of the NIA. During his tenure from March 3, 2010 to December 12, 2014, he approved an internal memo and accepted $2,63,462.82 under the head of ‘parting gift and pension’ from the firm.
The CBI claimed that the amount was withdrawn and accepted without the approval of the board of directors. Mittal, however, claimed that the board had approved the amount. The CBI also recovered minutes of the meeting held on October 29, 2014, wherein 15 million Naira (a small part of actual withdrawn amount) and 18% pension was approved. The said document was recovered from the custody of Mittal at the time of the investigation.
Prosecution Produces A Copy Of The Minutes Of The Meeting
The prosecution also produced a copy of the minutes of the meeting without any mention of the approval for a ‘parting gift and pension’. The document submitted by the prosecution was a certified copy of the original minutes, while the documents submitted by Mittal were, as claimed by the defence, also original.
On the plea of the prosecution, the court asked the firm to submit the original copy. The firm, however, refused to produce it, saying it is a bound document and property of the firm. This the firm took as genuine minutes of the meeting. The court said that Mittal, when no longer in service, had no reason to have the original minutes of meeting and therefore cannot be considered original.
