Has Economic Offences Wing of T.N. police ever solved a case within reasonable time, asks Madras High Court

Justice G. Jayachandran of the Madras High Court on Monday (August 18, 2025) wanted to know whether the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Tamil Nadu police had ever brought to logical conclusion, within a reasonable time, any case involving the duping of gullible depositors by financial firms.

The judge asked an Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) to point out a single case, in the entire history of EOW, in which it had completed the probe swiftly, recovered the money due to the depositors and obtained conviction of the accused before the trial court within two years.

He expressed anguish over the EOW prolonging the investigation in cases booked under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act of 1997 and the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act of 2019 for years together without much progress.

The judge said, the specialised wing established for investigating economic offences had hardly ensured the culprits were secured at the earliest and their assets were identified, frozen and disposed of within a reasonable time to provide some relief to the depositors.

The observations were made during the hearing of a bail petition filed by T. Devanathan Yadav, the former chairman-cum-managing director of Mylapore Hindu Permanent Fund Nidhi Limited, who remains incarcerated since August 2024 for allegedly defaulting ₹618 crore to around 5,600 depositors.

Advocate N.G.R. Prasad, representing Mylapore Hindu Permanent Fund Investors and Depositors Welfare Association, said, the members of the association were from middle class families and therefore, desperate to get back their hard earned money deposited in the financial institution.

Agreeing with him that return of money to the depositors ought to have been the first priority of the investigating agency, the judge wondered what would the EOW gain by simply keeping the accused in custody for years together without taking steps to liquidate his assets and settle the depositors.

The judge asked senior counsel S.T.S. Moorthy, representing the bail petitioner, to submit by next week a list of all the properties that could be liquidated for the purpose of settling the depositors. The judge said, the petitioner’s plea for grant of bail would be considered only if he comes up with facts.

Earlier, the APP told the court though the police had obtained a list of properties from the petitioner, it was found most of them were suffering from one kind of encumbrance or another thereby making it impossible to dispose of those properties for the purpose of settling money to the depositors.

Justice Jayachadran said the Mylapore Hindu Permanent Fund was an age-old institution that had been functioning without any major complaints since 1872. It was only now it had come into adverse notice because of maladministration and the malady must be cured, he added.