The I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) ponzi scam in which thousands of investors were duped of their hard-earned after being promised bumper returns, was handed over to the CBI on 30th August 2019.
It was the case where an investment banking company named IMA took huge deposits primarily from the members of the Muslim community. The company was run by Mahommed Mansoor Khan who claimed it was a sharia-compliant operation run on Islamic principles. The company stopped giving dividends in March 2019. The investors filed a complaint with the police. In June 2019, SIT was set up by the Government of Karnataka for the investigation of 51,500 complaints filed by the investors.
As the case was handed over to CBI, the CBI sought the state's permission to prosecute a total of six public servants, including the two IPS officers in question.
The list includes the incumbent Inspector-General of Police (IGP) & Additional Commissioner of Police (Administration) of Bengaluru Hemant Nimbalkar — who then served as the IGP of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Economic Offences Division (EOD), Ajay Hilori, a commandant in the state reserve police (then Deputy Commissioner of Police – Bengaluru East), E B Sridhara (then Deputy Superintendent of Police, CID in EOD), M Ramesh (then Commercial Street Police Inspector) and P Gowrishankar (then Sub-Inspector of Commercial Street police station).
Hemant Nimbalkar and Ajay Hilori were accused under section 197 of C.r.P.C (Prosecution of Judges and public servants.) & section 170 of Karnataka Police Act 1963 (suits or prosecutions in respect of acts done under color of duty as aforesaid not to be entertained without the sanction of government).
According to CBI, Nimbalkar who supervised the inquiry stated that the IMA is not a financial establishment under the definition of the KPID Act. Later Nimbalkar reiterated his stand that IMA and its group entities did not violate any provisions of the KPID Act and “thus showed undue interest in order to favor Mohammed Mansoor Khan and IMA that he wanted to protect the activities of Shri Mohammed Mansoor Khan and save him from any action by Government under the KPID Act”
Hilori demanded and accepted illegal gratification on various occasions from Mohammed Mansoor Khan through Nijamuddin, Director and Operational Manager, IMA for favoring IMA by delaying the report to RBI and for not taking action against IMA on various complaints in connivance with other public servants.
On Monday, September 11, the state government gave CBI permission to prosecute the officers.
