In a setback for Exalogic Solutions Private Ltd, the firm owned by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter T Veena, the Karnataka High Court on Friday, February 16, rejected the company’s petition challenging an investigation by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) against it. The order was pronounced by Justice M Nagaprasanna.
The High Court, while reserving the order on February 12, had directed the SFIO to not take any coercive action against the firm till an order was pronounced and also ordered Exalogic to submit all documents that were required for the SFIO.
Exalogic Solutions came under the scanner after the New Delhi bench of the Income Tax Interim Settlement Board disallowed claims made by Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) to exempt payments amounting to Rs 1.72 crore made to the company. These payments were done in a span of three years as monthly payments from the CMRL despite there being no evidence of any services given in return, the board decision said.
The I-T report stated that during their raid at the residence of Suresh Kumar, the CFO of CMRL, in 2019, they seized documents containing details of payments made to politicians, temples, government servants and media houses.
Appearing for the company, Senior Advocate Arvind P Datar submitted that there cannot be two parallel investigations against the same company citing that an investigation by the Registrar of Companies against Exalogic was already underway.
Datar also argued that SFIO is supposed to investigate serious frauds like the Sahara scam which involves hundreds of crores and not cases like the present one, where the allegation is regarding a transaction of Rs 1.72 crores.