Kasaragod: Advocate C Shukkur said he did not sign or notarise the affidavit that helped Qamar Fashion Gold induct S K Muhammed Kunhi (78) as a director, giving a double twist to the Rs 140-crore Fashion Gold deposit scam.
"I categorically say that the signature above my name on Muhammed Kunhi's declaration is not mine," Adv Shukkur said in a press conference in Kasaragod on Wednesday, July 26.
Late Friday, July 21, Melparamba Police registered an FIR, charging Adv Shukkur and three others with forgery, cheating, and conspiracy on a complaint filed by Muhammed Kunhi, the 11th accused in the Fashion Gold deposit case.
Kunhi said he was made an accused in the case because he was named as a director of Qamar Fashion Gold, one of the four companies involved in the scam. He alleged his signature was forged twice in August 2013 by Qamar Fashion Gold's managing director T K Pookoya Thangal, his son and director A P Hisham, and company secretary Sandeep Satheesh to make him a director of the company without his knowledge or consent. Kunhi said he named Adv Shukkur as the third accused because he allegedly notarised the documents.
To be sure, Melparamba police registered the case only after they were directed by the court of Hosdurg Judicial First Class Magistrate (II), not when Kunhi approached them.
Now, Adv Shukkur, who helped expose the alleged scam, said his signature on the affidavit was also forged. But he said he would take legal action only after Melparamba police completed their investigation and submitted the charge sheet.
He said the complaint against him was a conspiracy to defame him and discredit his service to the victims of the deposit scam.
"This is the first time such a big scam was reported from Kasaragod. It was perpetrated by politically and religiously influential persons and targeted at members of the Muslim community. I took a stance against it. Several persons threatened me then. I see this case as one such threat," he said. "I am not backing off."
IUML leader and former MLA M C Kamaruddin and IUML leader and Samastha leader T K Pookoya Thangal started Fashion Gold in 2006 and started illegally taking deposits from community members promising exorbitant returns as long as they stayed invested.
Investigating officers said they were taking money from new depositors to pay old depositors, a trait of Ponzi schemes.
Over the years, they started three more companies and opened stores in Kasaragod, Cheruvathur, Payyannur, and Thalassery.
They started defaulting after the Union government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in November 2016.
Between late 2019 and April 2020, all four stores shut shop.
Yet, the depositors were not taking legal help because they did not dare to go against religious leaders such as Pookoya Thangal.
Adv Shukkur took up the cases of around 20 depositors in June 2020 and nudged them to file complaints of cheating with the police. "I intervened as a social worker and as an advocate," he said.
The first case was registered on a complaint filed by Basheer on August 28, 2020, at Chandera Police Station in Kasaragod district.
By December of that year, 168 cases of cheating were filed against chairman Kamaruddin and managing director Pookoya Thangal in Kasaragod, Kannur, and Kozhikode districts. The companies had around 743 depositors, said Shukkur.
The Crime Branch, which took up the investigation, charged them and 15 other directors with cheating, and Section 3 of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes (BUDS) Act which prohibits raising money from the public under an unregulated deposit scheme. They were also charged with Section 5 of the Kerala Protection of Interests of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act, 2013.
Under the section, if a financial establishment defaults, the management can be punished for a term that may extend to 10 years.
BUDS Act has provision to restitute depositors
Adv Shukkur, who is representing several depositors in the Fashion Gold deposit case, said the police have initiated steps to attach six properties worth Rs 29 crore of the accused. "When I asked depositors to take legal recourse, several persons asked me if they would get their money back. BUDS has provision to restitute depositors," he said.
Sections 12, 13, and 14 of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act 2019 deal with compensating depositors. According to Section 12, the depositors have the priority to receive money from attached properties and money.
Shukkur said police have initiated steps to attach Pookoya Thangal's house, Kamaruddin's property, Fashion Gold's one-acre plot in Bengaluru bought in 2017, and Fashion Gold's two buildings in Kasaragod and Payyanur. The six properties are worth Rs 29 crore, he said.
