In a 15-year-old financial scam in which hundreds of people were duped of their hard earned money, a city court has imposed a fine of Rs 52 lakhs on the then highly placed officials, including a practising lawyer, which would be used to compensate the investors.
Earlier, the magisterial court had acquitted the convicts but the state filed an appeal before the sessions court which convicted them by observing the superior courts order where it was noted, “The crimes of the white-collar brand deserve no sympathy.” Additional sessions judge Surinder Singh Rathi while pronouncing the judgment against Karan Singh Kardam, 68, and Madan Lal, 65, observed, “In a delicately woven conspiracy which was executed with stealthy precision pan India, hundreds of gullible investors were divested of their lifelong earnings.”
The court ordered both the convicts to cough up Rs 26 lakhs each and sentenced them to jail for 7 years for cheating public of their money and another seven years for conspiring against them. Both the punishments will run concurrently.
Convict Kardam, now a practising lawyer, was the proprietor of one of the group’s firm namely M/s Hoffland Investments. Madan Lal was the assistant vice president in the company and was one of the authorised signatory of the bank accounts.