Criminal case against Gavaskar, 5 directors of Topline Shoes

Sunil Gavaskar

The Vadodara city police on Thursday registered a criminal case against Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar and five directors of Topline Shoes Ltd (TSL) for allegedly cheating shareholders of the company.

This follows an advice from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Ahmedabad. The Department of Company Affairs has started cracking down finally on 122 vanishing companies across the country.

Well-placed sources in the DCA told Business Standard on Thursday that similar criminal cases were being registered by the police in 15 states.

The highest number of such cases are in Gujarat "" 33 companies have been accused of cheating their shareholders and not complying with the norms of the Companies Act, 1956.

The deputy commissioner of police (DCP) of Vadodara city, Wabang Jamir, who has been investigating the case against Gavaskar and TSL's five more directors said, "Acting on an instruction which came from RoC, Ahmedabad on Wednesday night, we have registered the case against the six directors of Topline Shoes which had its registered office at Alkapur Road in Vadodara and we have initiated probe in the case to find out the financial irregularities in the company."

He said so far there is substantial evidence against the accused. "We may issue summons to them which may finally lead to their arrests as the sections of the Indian Penal Code under which they have been booked pertain to non-bailable cognisable offences," Jamir said.

The office of TSL and the residences of the three directors in Vadodara as mentioned in the RoC documents were found locked.

The five others are Duleep Singh, H M G Murthy, H M B Murthy, Vinod B Mistry and Arun Kapani. According to Jamir, Topline was floated as a registered company in 1991 and in 1992. It floated an initial public offer (IPO) for raising Rs 4.65 crore.

TSL stopped filing its results with bourses and Sebi from 1991-2000 following which the Company was finally delisted from Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange later in 2001.

The RoC, Ahmedabad, B N Harish denied to comment on the proceedings and Gavaskar could not be reached as he has been camping in Sri Lanka.