Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Thursday booked former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kirit Somaiya and his son Neil over allegations of misappropriating Rs 57 crore from the funds that were collected to save INS Vikrant — India’s first aircraft carrier, decommissioned in 1997 — from scrapping.
The Somaiyas have been booked under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 34 (common intent) of the Indian Penal Code.
Somaiya, a former MP from Mumbai North East, responded to the allegations through his lawyer, saying that he would not be available for investigations before 13 April because of prior engagements.
“Give us any date after 13 April. We will co-operate,” Somaiya said through his lawyer, Vivekanand Gupta.
Somaiya and his son have already approached the Mumbai sessions court with an application for anticipatory bail. The bail application calls the allegations frivolous and baseless.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has claimed that both father and son had gone “underground”, and asked Somaiya to show himself in public.
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, why fear,” he said while speaking to reporters Saturday.
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INS Vikrant’s history
INS Vikrant was the Indian Navy’s first aircraft carrier. A Majestic-class light fleet carrier laid down in an English shipyard as HMS Hercules for the Royal Navy in 1943, it was left unfinished after the end of World War II. After India purchased the incomplete carrier in 1957, work resumed and it was commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1961.
The carrier gained national prominence for the role it played in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war, when its Sea Hawk fighters sank ships in Pakistani ports, flew operations to enforce a naval blockade, and attacked Pakistani barracks. Its crew received two Maha Vir Chakras and 12 Vir Chakras for their role in the campaign.
In 1999, two years after it was decommissioned, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee gifted the ship to Maharashtra to be converted into a martyrs’ museum.
As maintenance costs mounted, the central government, then under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), decided to dismantle the ship. The ship was sold for Rs 60 crore to a shipbreaker after an online auction in 2014. The sale was contested in the Supreme Court, which dismissed a petition.
The ship was finally scrapped in 2014.
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The case
A complaint lodged by 53-year-old Baban Bhosale — an ex-soldier who served in the Army from 1990 to 1997 — at the Trombay police station Wednesday claims that the Somaiyas, who spearheaded a campaign in 2013 to save INS Vikrant, had swindled the funds collected.
The complainant claimed he had paid Rs 2,000 for the initiative, and that the total money collected could be around Rs 57 crore.
Bhosale’s complaint came after Shiv Sena MP Raut called Somaiya a “traitor” and accused him of “black marketing national sentiment”.
Mark My Words:INS विक्रांत के नाम पर करोड़ों रुपये जमाकर देश व जनता को ठगने वाले सोमैया बाप-बेटे को जेल जाना होगा.किरीट सोमैया महाराष्ट्रद्रोही तो है ही,अब देशद्रोही भी साबित हो गए।लोगों को अब चुप नहीं रहना चाहिए..राष्ट्रीय भावना की कालाबाजारी करने वाली BJP से जवाब मांगना चाहिए। pic.twitter.com/gC8Fxjjab0
— Sanjay Raut (@rautsanjay61) April 7, 2022
Somaiya denied any wrongdoing and told reporters Friday that there was no evidence of the allegations.
“There are no details in this one-and-a-half page FIR. No proof anywhere,” Somaiya said.
“The complainant has said that he came to know about this Rs 57 crore alleged fraud through the media. Raut said that Neil Somaiya did money laundering, and based on that (Maharashtra Chief Minister) Uddhav Thackeray declared that I am the culprit. I want to ask him where the money that was allegedly laundered is.”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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