New Delhi, Nov. 22
If the Enforcement Directorate could secure 14 convictions only in 15 years, the track record of another prime agency to fraud corporate houses is no better. The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) under the overall supervision of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs is dismal if not disastrous. The SFIO is pretty independent in its function, having the powers to arrest and conduct even searches. The government had set up SFIO to deal with serious frauds by corporation houses and companies.
Data accessed by Lokmat showed that the SFIO probed as many as 132 companies during the year 2017-18. But it could complete the investigation only in five cases. The record next year was no good when it could complete probes in 12 cases though it initiated inquiries into 83 companies. The worst came in 2019-20 when 361 companies were probed and only in 12 cases the probe was completed.
In response to a question in Lok Sabha by Dushyant Singh of the BJP, Corporate Affairs Minister Anurag Thakur disclosed that investigation of 92 cases are being probed by the SFIO. This did not include 6 cases where stay has been granted by courts.
However, he ducked the question which asked the minister details of top 50 cases of fraudulent companies in terms of the amount involved. Thakur did not reveal the amount involved saying the “gradation of cases under investigation in terms of the amount involved could be known after the completion of investigation of these cases”.
In a response to another question, the government claimed that of the 1182 complaints filed as many as 462 complaints have been disposed of and secured conviction in 326 cases.
But the cat was out of the bag soon when the record of past three years of SFIO’s performance were accessed. The details of investigations completed during the past three years are given here:
