Mainstream WeeklyAn intriguing criminal case (Case No. CRR 2540 of 2024) has come up in Calcutta High Court and it is expected to unravel another instance of the unholy nexus between Corporates, criminals, Govt officials and Police. Already notices have been issued to Govt of West Bengal, a Tata Group company, the insurance regulator IRDAI, the Chaudhary Charan Singh University (erstwhile Meerut University) and others. The original FIR was registered in the year 2020 in the Park Street Police Station of Kolkata. The charges are of forgery and cheating the public through forged documents. Also, as per police sources, later a written complaint was also filed by the complainant against Mr. Natarajan Chandrasekharan, the Tata Sons Chairman, for exploiting his position to protect the perpetrators and subsequently harassing the victim in relation to that FIR, as explained in details below.
The company involved is a little-known Tata Group Company named Tata Motors Insurance Broking & Advisory Services Limited or TMIBASL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. It is an insurance broking firm operating under the rules and regulations enshrined by the insurance regulator IRDAI. As per law the position of CEO cum Principal Officer of any insurance broking company is a statutory one and the minimum mandatory educational qualification for that post is university graduation.
It was the CEO or Principal Officer of TMIBASL who was removed by IRDAI for not having that minimum mandatory qualification.
Moreover the Office of the Central Information Commission (CIC) of India has termed it as a matter of cheating and duping the gullible public and asked for strict penal action.
It is alleged that tremendous effort was going on from different quarters like the mighty Tata Group, some top notch officials of IRDAI and others to suppress this crime.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) of India, subsequently, came down like a ton of bricks on IRDAI and literally forced (Order No. CIC/IRDAA/A/2017/607334-BJ + CIC/IRDAA/A/2017/177155-BJ dated 03.04.2019), then published the matter on their official website despite severe opposition from IRDAI.
Let us delve into details of this unsavoury episode.
An individual by the name of Pijush Kanti Roy was employed in the capacity of Senior Manager at the company Tata Motors Insurance Broking & Advisory Services Ltd (TMIBASL) Kolkata office. He had joined the company on 13/10/2014. The IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India) rules specifically state that the Chief Executive/ Principal Officer of the Company needs to possess a Graduate Degree as a minimum qualification. This is a statutory requirement. In due course of his employment, Roy started receiving emails from anonymous identities claiming to be whistle-blowers who attached copies of the PO’s self-attested forged degree. An NGO, by the name of Arise India Foundation, complained about this to the Chairman of IRDA, the Vice-Chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, Cyrus Mistry, the then TATA Group Chairman and the Police Commissioner of Mumbai. They claimed that the Principal Officer of the company, Tarun Kumar Samant (or Sawant) was the holder of a fake degree from Meerut University (presently Chaudhuri Charan Singh University) and had provided different self-attested versions of his graduation certificate. One bore the name of Tarun Kumar Sawant and it mentioned subjects pursued as English, Economics and Political Science with General English in the General Course, with the signature and official stamp of the Vice-Chancellor of the university only – and the second carried the name of Tarun Kumar Samant, subjects passed being Economics, Political Science and English Literature with General English in the General Course, and the signatures carried were that of the Registrar and the Vice-Chancellor with an official stamp. A cursory look at the certificates would make it obvious even to a layman that the forgery was the job of an amateur roadside DTP unit.
Apprehensive that it violated statutory compliances of IRDAI with the potential of causing embarrassment to both TMBIASL and the Tata Group, Mr. Pijush Roy decided to pursue the matter. He did this internally and took up the issue verbally and officially with his seniors and subsequently through official channels to company authorities and, finally, to the top brass of Tata Group including the then Chairman, Mr. Cyrus Mistry. His actions were totally in adherence to Tata Code of Conduct or TCOC.
As a “reward” for his bold action, he was terminated from service on the 5th of August 2016 on grounds of insubordination.
His contention was later validated by the IRDA. On the 2nd of May 2017, the body issued a letter to the Chairman of TMIBASL directing “to remove Tarun Kumar Samant (or Sawant) as the PO of the broking company with immediate effect. The letter was signed by one Randip Singh Jagpal, Chief General Manager, IRDA.
The insurance regulator IRDAI was compelled by the order of the Central Information Commission of India to publish this fact on their official website. The link for the same is https://irdai.gov.in/document-detail?documentId=391359
The letter from IRDA establishes the fact that in February 2016, even before Pijush Roy had raised the issue in April, 2016, the concerned university itself had invalidated the same. The copy of the order was obtained by a relative of Pijush Roy through the Right to Information Act both from the insurance regulator IRDAI and the office of the Central Information Commissioner of India. The Central Information Commissioner of India during the hearing stated;
“On being queried by the Commission regarding the nature of the complaint and the action taken thereon, the Respondent submitted that consequent to an enquiry conducted by the Public Authority, the said officer was removed from the post of Pr. Officer of Tata Motors Insurance Brokerage and Advisory Services Ltd. since he did not fulfil the qualifications required for such a position…”
Further, the CIC opined that
“……. The complaint made by the Appellant having been proved correct about wrong disclosure of the qualifications of the Pr. Officer of the said advisory services firm is tantamount to duping and cheating
the gullible public and therefore strict penal action were warranted in such cases……”
Thus, it is established beyond any shadow of doubt that the gentleman concerned was guilty of forgery and deserved stringent punishment... Nonetheless, instead of going after the criminal, the Tata Group is pursuing, with vengeance, a hapless terminated employee – an employee who was dismissed because he officially raised this issue initially with his immediate reporting authority and then with the topmost level of the Group during the chairmanship of Cyrus Mistry. He even communicated the matter to Mr. Ratan Tata against which there was an official acknowledgement and an assurance of a proper enquiry.
An FIR was instead registered in the Cyber Crime Cell of Mumbai Police against the employee, Mr. Pijush Roy, on a complaint by one Bhanu Bhai Sharma, the CFO and Chief Compliance Officer of TMIBASL. It is worth mentioning that on 20th September, 2016, Bhanu Bhai Sharma was present with Tarun Kumar Samant or Sawant in the meeting with officials of IRDAI on the issue of validity of the university degree. Mr. Pijush Kanti Roy was arrested by the Mumbai Police on the basis of false and frivolous charges, which they have still not able to include in a chargesheet, let alone convict him.
To further add to his harassment, the company TMIBASL and the individual Tarun Kumar Samant or Sawant jointly filed a defamation suit for Rs. 100 crores in Bombay High Court in “original side”, which implies that the plaintiffs have to deposit a certain amount as court fees to the Bombay High Court. It is also pertinent that the fees were officially deposited at the Bombay High Court by a Tata Group entity along with an individual about whom the Central Information Commission of India has asked for strict penal action for cheating and duping the gullible public, although the complaint was filed by Bhanu Bhai Sharma in his personal capacity.
Another RTI appeal by the lawyer of Pijush Roy to IRDAI further confirmed that after the removal of that person from the statutory post for the want of mandatory qualification, neither he, nor the company TMIBASL or Tata Group appealed for the revocation of that decision or challenged the same in any forum or Court of Law. In that same reply IRDAI had also confirmed that no legal or penal action were initiated on their behalf against this forgery or cheating.
Pijush Roy reached out to Mr. Ratan Tata, the current Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekharan and the Chief Justice, Supreme Court, with his findings from RTI. In retaliation, the Tata Group and that person whose forgery and cheating were officially confirmed by two Central Govt offices jointly filed a “Contempt of Court case against him in Bombay High Court”.
Even desperate appeals of the wife of Pijush Roy both to Late Mr. Ratan Tata and Mr. Natarjan Chandrasekharan remain unanswered till date.
With no other way out, Pijush Roy filed a FIR in the Park Street Police Station of Kolkata with all the documents he obtained through multiple RTI appeals. Case No. 66 dated 21.03.2020 under stringent non-bailable sections - 120B/463/464/465/467/468/420 IPC.
But strangely with the thorough knowledge (with documentary evidence) of three successive Commissioners of Police of Kolkata, two Deputy Commissioners and several Assistant Commissioners, the Kolkata Police remained conspicuously silent on this case for almost three years.
After the writ petition of Pijush Roy in Kolkata High Court, Kolkata Police hurriedly filed a closure report of the case stating the complaint as a “Mistake of Facts” and that “no forgery and cheating had taken place”.
But the Kolkata High Court allowed Pijush Roy to legally challenge that Closure Report Kolkata.
Now, again that matter has come up before Calcutta High Court who have issued the order (CRR No. 2540 of the year 2024) for serving notice to the concerned parties i.e. The Govt of West Bengal, the individual Tarun Kumar Samant (or Sawant), the insurance regulator IRDAI, the company TMIBASL and the Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut as stated at the beginning of this article
It is expected that the matter will come up for further hearing in January 2025.
Moreover, the Supreme Court of India has also granted liberty to Pijush Roy to legally challenge all the cases filed against him.
Now, after Tatas came to know about the FIR Pijush Roy had lodged in Kolkata, they promptly applied for his Bail Cancellation in the trial court of Mumbai. But for the last one and half years they have sought several adjournments seeking further time whenever the case has come up for hearing.
Meanwhile, two more cases were filed against Pijush Roy, one in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Roorkee, in the state of Uttarakhand where Roy had last visited in the year 2000.
The other one a false case of physical assault in Kolkata under IPC 323. Expensive lawyers are travelling all the way from Mumbai and appearing in this case in trial court of Kolkata.
It is therefore a clear case of vendetta against an employee who upheld the Truth by forces acting in concert which includes an employee dismissed from service on grounds of forgery and the Tata Group as a whole, through its designated representatives. The Tatas have to be compelled now to withdraw the false cases against him and grant him adequate compensation for terminating his services and harassing him. If not, it will be a sad day for the cause of justice for the whistleblowing community as a whole.
Tatas are rated among the topmost companies with modern policies, processes, and technologies in place, and boast of top-notch professionals. Their Code of Conduct (TCOC) is explicit and unambiguous: “We do not tolerate any form of retaliation against anyone reporting legitimate concerns. Anyone involved in targeting such a person will be subject to disciplinary action. If you suspect that you or someone you know has been subjected to retaliation for raising a concern or for reporting a case, we encourage you to promptly contact your line manager (and if it does not yield results, report to the higher-level supervisor), the company’s Ethics Counsellor, the Human Resources department, the MD/CEO, or the office of the group’s Chief Ethics Officer.”
However, the reality is different. Here is anecdotal evidence of the harassment meted out to a senior executive of one of the Tata Group companies, not just in the form of dismissal from service but incarceration based on a false FIR - albeit for a short period - a Rs. 100 crores defamation case and many more legal cases.
Another very important thing is that earlier in 2016, Tata Sons, the company TMIBASL and that CEO cum Principal Officer together approached Delhi High Court and not Bombay High Court under whose jurisdiction they were based, claiming that false information was spread against the CEO about his qualification. Case No. CS (COMM) 1601 of 2016. But, after the Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw of Delhi High Court ordered for the investigation of the matter of alleged false qualification by the insurance regulator IRDAI, the appellants including Tata Sons backed out of the case.