Firm 'laundered' crores in donations to mutt

The Bangalore City Police are investigating a money laundering complaint against a financial consultancy and eight individuals for raising donations for a religious institution in Tamil Nadu. 

The complaint claims that the consultants collected “black money” to the tune of Rs 3,994 crore and laundered it through the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam in Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. 

The City Crime Branch (CCB) has booked cases under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471(using as genuine a forged record), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (criminal intent) and 420 (cheating), under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), against Genesis Financial Consultants and others. 

On April 24, 2014, one Neelakantachar Swamiji and eight others — all residents of Bangalore — filed a complaint with the Vijayanagar police station claiming cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery by Genesis Financial Consultants and nine people.

In his complaint, Neelakantachar has claimed that in the year 2011-12, he and the eight others had facilitated raising of donations to the tune of Rs 3,994 crore for the Kanchi mutt. The accused Genesis Consultants, B Saraswathi, her husband M Krishnappa and her daughters Soumya, Shilpa and Meghana, along with her son-in-law Sudhakar, had cheated the complainants of service commission for facilitating the donation accruals. The service commission was said to be 2 per cent of the accrued donations.

Neelakantachar has stated: “We are devotees of Kanchipuram Mutt and because of the excellent relationship between us and Shridharan (authorised by the Kanchi Mutt to receive donations), in good faith, introduced Shridharan to the representatives of Genesis Financial Consultants. We vouched for them (accused) and recommended them to the Mutt in good faith, believing that our part of the service commission will be delivered to us by the accused persons and also believing that donations are going to come from registered domestic/foreign donors.”

However, the complainants claimed that the accused cheated them of their commission, despite having received Rs 99.8 crore as commission from the Mutt for raising donations of Rs 3,994 crore. 

The complainants have claimed that the accused are hiding the details of the donors from them. “...Which gives rise to serious doubts that they have misrepresented the facts and collected black money and made an effort to convert it by impersonation through the holy Kanchipuram Mutt,” claims the complaint.

The Vijayanagar police transferred the complaint to the CCB, due to the serious nature of the case. The CCB sent a police team to Chennai and recorded a statement from Shridharan on August 26 last.

Crores target 

Shridharan, in his statement, has said that a Memorandum of Understanding, dated May 21, 2012 was signed by him on behalf of the Mutt, and the accused for generating donations to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore from different persons. 

He claimed that he was not involved directly, apart from signing on behalf of the Mutt. He was asked to be authorised signatory for receiving the donations for the Mutt after being introduced to the mutt seer by his friend Chandrashekar Guruji. 

“In 2011-12, myself and 15 members went to Kanchi Mutt in Kanchipuram. Our group was led by Chandrashekar Guruji. When I entered the room, Jagadguru Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi Swamiji told me to go out of the room. The rest of the people were inside the room,” justified Shridharan for his non-involvement.