Maharashtra: 40 days after death, no arrest in Nitin Desai suicide case

Art director Nitin Desai at ND Studios. File pic/Nimesh Dave

Forty days after the registration of an FIR against the staffers of Edelweiss ARC for abetting the suicide of renowned art director Nitin Desai, no arrests have been made. According to highly placed sources in Raigad police, the suspects are not at their residences and their phones are switched off. The accused have approached the high court to quash the FIR but as of now, no interim relief has been given to them. Legal experts said further delay will weaken the case.

Desai, 58, allegedly committed suicide by hanging inside his ND Studios, Karjat on August 2. After the body was found, Neha Desai, his wife, gave a complaint to the Raigad police that officials of Edelweiss ARC (Asset Reconstruction Company) had been harassing the art director over a loan of Rs 181 crore which led to his death. Based on the complaint a FIR was filed by the Khalapur police against five Edelweiss officers - CEO R K Bansal, Chairman Rashesh Shah, Smit Shah, Keyoor Mehta and interim resolution professional Jitendra Kothari.

Mourners pay their respects at the funeral of art director Nitin Desai at ND Studios in Karjat, Raigad on August 4. Pic/Satej Shinde

After the registration of the FIR, Raigad Superintendent of Police Somnath Gharge, constituted a special team led by Vikram Kadam, deputy superintendent of police, to investigate the matter. It comprised an inspector, three assistant inspectors and four constables. The team summoned the managing director of the company to furnish documents related to the loan given to Desai. After three rounds of questioning, he wasn't summoned again.

‘Lots of important evidence'

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"While scrutinising documents, we have received a lot of important evidence. There is also solid proof that pinpoints some of the accused," said a highly placed source in the Raigad police. "Thousands of pages have been scrutinised by the police, most of them were related to the accounting of the loans but some of them have given us vital clues as well," he added.

Nitin Desai

Meanwhile, cops found all the accused in the cases had switched off their cellphones and gone incommunicado. "We are figuring out their whereabouts. We can't say as of now whether they are absconding but we can surely conclude they are not being found," an officer added.

The team that visited the homes of the accused has made a note of their absence in the station diary. A highly placed source said, "For the past 20 to 25 days, despite conducting rigorous searches, the accused haven't been traced. The search party has visited the places multiple times and various means of tracing are being conducted." Gharge, the Raigad SP, told mid-day, "I can't comment anything about the case as of now, as the matter is being investigated."

Legal experts speak

Senior advocate Satish Maneshinde said that arresting any person in the case is the right of an investigating officer. "As far as this case is concerned, the accused have approached the court for relief and hearings are being conducted. I don't think the delay in the arrests in this offence will hamper any investigation as retrieval of documents and electronic records is always possible. The victim here has left a lot of evidence and that needs to be examined. This is not a simple case. He appears to have been under pressure. What that pressure was will be disclosed only after a thorough examination of the material available."

Senior advocate Uday Warunjikar stated that the case of abetment of suicide should have proximity with the act done by the accused. "The act done by the accused will have to be investigated and then proximity with the suicide should be the test. Delay on the part of police may prove fatal in such cases," he said.

Evidence tampering?

According to senior advocate Himanshu Marathkar, delay in arrests or investigations increases the risk of evidence tampering, which may lead to the wrong set of individuals being implicated. "Accused individuals or their associates may have the opportunity to destroy, alter or manipulate evidence, making it more challenging to establish the facts of the case. This underscores the importance of swift action to secure critical evidence. Time is a critical factor in investigations and arrests in cases like suicide. In the context of this specific case, if the delay is prolonged and not justified, it may indeed weaken the prosecution's position. It's essential for the authorities to strike a balance between conducting a thorough investigation and promptly moving the case forward to avoid undue delays that might hinder justice."

He added, "The passage of more than a month after the FIR was filed without any arrests or seizures indicates that the investigation is being approached cautiously. It's possible that the police are in the process of gathering strong evidence before making any arrests. Given the involvement of company officials, the case might be complicated with layers of bureaucratic and legal complexities. The high court not granting any interim relief suggests that the matter is being taken seriously, but it's also not indicative of guilt. It just means that the court hasn't seen sufficient reason to provide any relief to the accused at this stage".

Company responds

Edelweiss Group claimed, in a statement, that "false and motivated allegations of harassment have been made against four very senior executives, most of whom were operationally distant to the entire transaction and two of whom may only ever have had a single interaction each with the deceased."

"What was a legitimate exercise of a lender's legal right to recover debt from a wilful defaulter, through lawfully instituted legal proceedings has been labelled as harassment in the FIR and the four respectable senior executives are charged with a most bizarre charge of abetment of suicide. In the case of similarly placed lenders, various high courts, including the Bombay High Court, have consistently held that seeking the repayment of a debt does not amount to an abetment of suicide. Based on this position, Edelweiss officers named in the FIR have challenged the FIR before the Bombay High Court by invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of the court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The last hearing was on September 7 and the matter is sub judice," the statement read.

Edelweiss Group maintained that its officers have been fully cooperating with the investigation.

Its reply to a question on the officials' whereabouts read, "The group and its officers have also provided the investigating officer with all relevant and summoned documents and information spanning nearly 3,700+ pages to date. Edelweiss is committed to upholding its duty as a law-abiding corporate citizen and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation."