Mumbai: Sixteen years after a heavy monsoon rainstorm disrupted payday at Mandhana Industries Ltd and led to a Rs 20 lakh cash heist, a magistrate’s court finally convicted the company’s former driver, sentencing him to three months in prison. However, the victim of the theft, 72-year-old businessman Purushottam Mandhana, former chairperson and managing director of M/s Mandhana Industries Limited (MIL) (since liquidated), is currently himself embroiled as an accused in a massive Rs 975 crore bank loan fraud and money laundering case.Finding Ramjit Yadav guilty, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate DS Khedekar said, “The accused had committed breach of trust and stolen huge amount and considering the nature of offence awarding reasonable punishment for deterring such kind of mind people to avoid further incident and giving message in the society that the act of commission of theft and breach of trust would result punishment.”The magistrate further noted that the prosecution established the recovery of the amount from the house of the accused. The court held that the evidence showed Yadav had taken the money “without his consent dishonestly and intentionally”.The court, however, acquitted fruit vendor Santoshkumar Modi of receiving stolen property, due to lack of evidence.The prosecution said Mandhana Industries, a textile business with an office at Parel, had withdrawn Rs 20.25 lakh from a bank on July 1, 2008, to pay workers at Vikhroli. Due to heavy rains, the workers were not present at the factory, so the cash was brought back to the Parel office. Purshottam Mandhana then asked his brother Biharilal Mandhana to take the cash home and bring it back the next day.Around 6 pm, Biharilal Mandhana came down from the office with two security guards. The guards placed the cash in a car parked on the ground floor. According to the prosecution, Yadav, who worked as the driver, was near the vehicle. When Biharilal Mandhana was near the lift and the security guards returned towards the office, Yadav allegedly left the car key and company mobile phone inside the vehicle, took the entire cash amount and fled.Purshottam Mandhana told the court that a phone call came from his brother about 10 minutes later, informing that the driver had run away with the cash. Purshottam Mandhana went downstairs, made inquiries with other drivers, and then approached Bhoiwada Police Station to lodge the complaint.The magistrate noted that “the accused was only person in the vehicle when the car was parked at the ground floor and when security guards had put the cash in the car”.The investigation was later carried out with the involvement of DCB CID Unit-4. Police arrested Yadav on July 21, 2008. He was later granted bail. The prosecution said part of the stolen money was traced to Punjab and another Rs 5.65 lakh was recovered from the house of Yadav near Saat Rasta. The cash was recovered from a steel container in the kitchen.
