Ahmedabad, May 9 A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ahmedabad has sentenced four persons, including a former insurance surveyor, to three years of rigorous imprisonment in two fire insurance fraud cases.
The cases, registered by the CBI nearly 23 years ago, involved alleged fraudulent insurance claims that caused losses of more than Rs 31 lakh to New India Assurance Company Ltd.
In a judgment delivered on May 8, the court convicted Jatin Bhanubhai Joshi, then a surveyor based in Vadodara, along with private individuals Madhusudan Bhavsar, Ila Patel and Vijay Kayasth.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of the convicts. The CBI had registered the two cases on July 16, 2003, in connection with alleged fraudulent fire insurance claims submitted to New India Assurance Company Ltd. through forged and fabricated documents.
According to the agency, the first case registered involved alleged irregularities during 2002-03.
The accused in the case included Ronald Amarjeet James, then Senior Divisional Manager of New India Assurance Company Ltd in Surat, Sonu Communications & Colour Xerox in Vadodara, and surveyor Jatin Joshi.
The CBI alleged that the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy “with the objective to cheat in the matter of fraudulently obtaining fire insurance claims by submission of false and forged documents” and caused a wrongful loss of Rs 11,52,233 to the insurance company.
The second case registered pertained to alleged fraudulent insurance claims made during 2001-02 on behalf of M.D. Patel & Co.
The accused included Ronald Amarjeet James, Manubhai Patel of Anand, Nainesh Suryakant Patel of Anand and Jatin Joshi.
In this case, the CBI alleged that the accused conspired to obtain fire insurance claims through “submission of false and forged documents” and caused a wrongful loss of Rs 20,08,595 to the Surat office of New India Assurance Company Ltd.
Following the investigation, the CBI filed two separate charge sheets on June 15 and June 18, 2004, respectively.
During the course of the trial, three accused persons died, and proceedings against them were abated by the court.
They included Ronald Amarjeet James, the public servant named in both cases, and private individuals Nilesh Patel and Umesh Patel.
After the trial, the special CBI court convicted the surviving accused and awarded the sentence on May 8, bringing the long-pending prosecution in the two insurance fraud cases to a close.
--IANS
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