The man had withdrawn Rs2.10 crore using a fake cheque of a pharma company a year ago.
After playing cat and mouse with the law for more than a year in connection with a Rs3 crore fraud case, an absconder was dramatically caught at his daughter's marriage in Gandhinagar on Saturday. The life of 45-year-old Nayan alias Narendra Chaudhary, once an ambitious businessman and now in police custody, is a story of twists and turns.
According to Navrangpura police, Chaudhary forged a cheque worth Rs3,45,67,100 of Glenmark Generics Ltd, a Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company, on March 4, 2010 and approached the drawee bank in Ahmedabad.
Both Glenmark and Chaudhary had account in the same bank. The bank passed the cheque through the facility of overdraft uncleared effect, under which selected clients are allowed to withdraw money against the cheques they issue even before the cheques are actually cleared.
"However, since the branch office of the bank did not have that much amount, Chaudhary went to another branch of the bank on SG Highway. He said that he wanted the cheque amount to be deposited as his fixed deposit. The bank did accordingly. But Chaudhary withdrew Rs2.10 crore from the fixed deposit on March 10 and since then he has been on the run," said PM Sarvaiya, police inspector Navrangpura.
Sarvaiya said that incidentally on the same day that Chaudhary encashed the Rs3 crore cheque, the pharmaceutical company had also deposited a cheque of the same number as was forged by Chaudhary. But the company's cheque was for Rs67,100.
However, the anomaly (two cheques of the same number) went unnoticed by the bank.
When the company found this out, it was too late. They also claimed that the company directors who signed a cheque on behalf of the company was not allowed to issue a cheque worth more than Rs3 crore.
Police said that after initial inquiry, it was found that the bank was responsible for the mistake and it paid the money back to the company. Then, the bank officials lodged an FIR in Mumbai last year. Since then the accused was absconding.
According to police, Chaudhary was under huge debt as he had invested lot of money in business. He was a small time contractor with Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS), then a builder and later on, he had started his own independent business. He had availed of a Rs4 crore loan from a bank and was not able to repay it. "So, the bank had seized lots of his property, including a showroom in Vadaj. Chaudhary did the forgery to get his hands on money. The Mumbai police had informed us about the case and we had been on the lookout for him for the last one year," Sarviaya said. Police also suspect that Chaudhary could be part of a gang involved in forging cheques.
Acting on a tip-off, police nabbed Chaudhary on Saturday from Narayan Farm house in Gandhinagar where his daughter's marriage was being held. Soon after he performed the kanyadaan ritual, he was taken into custody.
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