IMA scam: Director Mansoor Khan booked under KPID Act; will investors get back their money?

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has booked I Monetary Advisory (IMA) group director Mohammed Mansoor Khan under the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions (KPID) Act, 2004, on Sunday (June 23).

The SIT sleuths probing various entities under IMA Private Ltd and their involvement in the scam have booked Khan under section 9 of the KPID Act to protect the investors. With nearly 50,000 complaints, the Ponzi scheme came out in public after its director Mohammed Mansoor Khan fled to the middle-east. 

According to the SIT sleuths, Khan was operating IMA under Limited Liability Partnership model (LLP) while collecting contributions from the people illegally as LLP cannot raise money from the public. But Khan defrauded the investors by not paying back their returns. The investigating officers claimed that Khan had not even paid the principal deposits to his investors.

Even though the act has been passed by law enforcement, the investors still feel a bleak chance of getting back their money which amounts to crores. The investors are blank on their deposited lifetime savings which just vanished out of the blue as even after 15 days into the investigation the investors have not yet been informed about the future of their IMA deposits.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had earlier issued notices against the fraudulent firm demanding investigations over its operations. But no actions were taken by the investigating CID officials of the Economic Offences Wing and they just submitted a loose report over the firm which led IMA to function freely without any hassle.

On June 18, Karnataka revenue minister RV Deshpande while considering the amendment of KPID Act said that no action was taken against the firm earlier, even after a notice from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the revenue department can only take a case against the firm based on a police complaint.

"The Economic Offences Wing, CID gave a report opining sections of KPID Act, 2004, cannot be applied to IMA Group," said the minister. The KPID Act, in its definition of 'deposit', explicitly excludes "amounts contributed as capital by partners of a firm", [Section 2 (ii)], while IMA group collected contributions to the company through a Limited Liability Partnership, reports The Hindu.

While SIT has claimed of knowing Khan's location has blocked his passport, Khan released a video on Sunday saying that he wishes to return back to India and is willing to help the investigation over IMA.

He claimed that many bigwigs are a part of IMA and he is ready to bring them down with the help of police. He has asked the Bengaluru Police Commissioner Alok Kumar to help him in his return so that he can clarify the whole event.