The city police on Saturday arrested two directors of the UK-based multi-national company, AESSEAL plc, RK Nageshwar Rao (40) and Mohammad Sultan Patel (47), both residents of Hyderabad, for allegedly duping the company of Rs4.15 crore by supplying drawings, designs and other data to their relatives’ company.
The suspects were produced before judicial magistrate (first class), SM Padolikar, who remanded them into police custody till Tuesday.
Stephan Shaw, chairman of AESSEAL plc, lodged a complaint at Sahakarnagar police station against the suspects. Rao is managing director and Patel the manufacturing director of the company. They have been accused of cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and also under the Information Technology Act, 2000. Another suspect, UK national and former chairman of AESSEAL plc, Allen Rodigz, is yet to be arrested.
A Pune sessions court had granted bail to Patel’s wife, Aliya and Rao’s wife, K Krishna Veni, directors of the Hyderabad-based Standard Mechanical Seals India Pvt Ltd (SMSIPL) on September 16.
According to the police, on September 3, 2008, Rao and Patel, as promoters of SMSIPL, had entered into assets purchase agreement with AESSEAL plc for Rs17.2 crore when Rodigz was the chairman. On the same day, Rao was appointed as managing director of AESSEAL plc’s Hyderabad office while Patel was appointed as manufacturing director of AESSEAL plc’s Bibvewadi facility in Pune.
The fraud came to light after Shaw conducted the external audit of the Hyderabad office which was running into losses. “Rao and Patel had allegedly stolen seal designs, drawings, intellectual property rights and other data from AESSEAL plc’s facilities and supplied them to a company, which in turn manufactured the mechanical seals and sold them causing loss of Rs4.15 crore,” Shaw’s complaint said.
