Chennai: Ramar Pillai, who created a sensation with his 'herbal fuel', has been sentenced to three years of imprisonment. Chennai CBI court pronounced the verdict on Friday in a case which dates back to 1999.
Besides Pillai, four others – R. Venudevi, S. Chinnasamy, R. Rajasegaran and S.K. Bharat – were also sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment by additional chief metropolitan magistrate in Chennai Thursday.
The magistrate also slapped a total fine of Rs 30,000 (Rs 6,000 each) in the cheating case, a CBI release said Friday.
Pillai was arrested by the CBI in March 2000, on charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating the public by selling industrial organic chemicals as herbal fuel. It was alleged that he duped people of nearly Rs 2 crore by selling fake fuel.
Hailing from a village near Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu, Pillai shot to fame in 1996 and conducted several demonstrations about his 'invention'.
According to the prosecution, during 1999-2000, Pillai colluded with other individuals "to do an illegal act, mixing petroleum products like Toluene, Naphtha etc, and to market it in the name of Ramar Petrol, or Ramar Tamildevi Mooligai Eriporul as if it were extracted from herbs".
The same was intended to be fraudulently used as 'automobile fuel from herbs', which quite naturally did not meet the ISI standards.
CBI said the so-called herbal fuel was only a mixture of petroleum products which also violated the Motor Spirit Speed Diesel (Regulation of Supply and Distribution and Prevention of Malpractices) Order.
"Ramar Pillai misrepresented the facts and sold the same as Herbal fuel to the public through various sales outlets, whom also he cheated by collecting huge amounts as deposits and fuel costs. Thus Ramar Pillai and his associates gained Rs 2.27 crore for themselves, by cheating the public," CBI added.
(With agency inputs)