New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) The Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing has filed a charge sheet against the promoters of a Mumbai-based fashion design institute, which is run by a Singaporean conglomerate, for allegedly attempting to grab an educational society's land and buildings worth Rs 100 crore in Noida.

Besides this, Raffles Design International's promoters are also accused of hatching a "criminal conspiracy" to defame the Educomp Group in India, according to the charge sheet.

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It tried to defame the educational group by lodging false complaints, based on fabricated evidence, with the Prime Minister's Office, the Central Vigilance Commissioner, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office and the Central Bureau of Investigation, it stated.

The promoters of the Mumbai-based institute also planted false evidence, and motivated and false stories in the media to defame Educomp, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) mentioned in the charge sheet filed in a Delhi court last week.

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The EOW has booked Chew Hua Seng, chairman of Raffles Education Corporation Ltd that runs the design institute, his wife Doris Chung, his son Chew Han Wei, John Tham, Cheng Lok Teo, How Teck Lim, Hui Tin Gan, and Jun He, all Singaporean nationals of Chinese origin, along with the corporation's India representative Saurabh Sharma.

Except Sharma, all the others are part of the top management of the corporation, the charge sheet mentioned.

They have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 465 (forgery), 469 (harming reputation by forgery), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using forged documents as genuine) and 506 (criminal intimidation), it stated.

On the land grabbing attempt, the charge sheet stated that the promoters "criminally conspired and forged documents to be members of the Jai Radha Raman Education Society (JRRES), which runs the JRE Group of Institutions in Knowledge Park 4, Greater Noida, and tried to grab the assets of the society by removing its existing members illegally".

"JRRES owns 44 acres of land and building constructed on it, worth around Rs 100 crore. The Singapore firm was trying to grab the ownership of the assets under JRRES by hiding their commercial interests and their relationship with Raffles," the charge sheet stated.

A trustee of Delhi-based Learning Leadership Foundation (LLF), and a member of the Richmond Education Society (RES) had filed a complaint on the defamation and attempt to grab land matters with the Tis Hazari Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in 2019 and it was forwarded to the EOW for suitable action.

Achint Singh Gyani, the lawyer appearing for LLF, said the court is expected to take cognisance of the charge sheet on April 29.

The charge sheet also confirmed "theft of electronic data, forging of ledgers and fabrication of false evidences by using illegally acquired documents from both LLF and RES".

"These false and fabricated evidence were used for criminal intimidation and to blackmail the members of both these societies and JRRES, which is closely associated to the other two Indian firms, by Raffles for achieving their malicious motive of grabbing the land and building belongs to JRRES," it stated.

"In addition to achieve the end of extortion, Raffles conspired with certain public servants to start criminal proceedings against the members of JRRES," it stated.

Shantanu Prakash, the promoter of Educomp Solutions Ltd, is the president of JRRES and the managing trustee of LLF.

According to the charge sheet, the Singapore-based corporation was trying to remove Prakash and other members of the JRRES as his company Educomp's joint venture with Raffles to run fashion design colleges and distant learning centres in India ended in dispute and legal battles.

In 2015, Raffles Education Corporation Ltd attempted to take control of JRRES by initiating arbitration proceedings before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and sought the removal of existing members of the JRRES and appointment of nominees of Raffles.

However, in 2017, SIAC refused to order the removal of the existing members.

In 2016, the registrar of the companies (RoC) in Delhi observed that while seeking membership, eight members of the JRRES, who were Singapore citizens, hid the fact that they were working on behalf of the Raffles group of companies, and they had implicit commercial interests.

The RoC had directed these members to comply with the memorandum and the regulations of the JRRES that they had no claim over the assets or the profit by the virtue of the membership.

"Having lost the legal battle in Singapore and reprimanded in India, the top management of Raffles group hatched a criminal conspiracy to defame Educomp in India by forging false evidences and motivated false stories in media," the charge sheet stated.

he Singapore firm started blackmailing members with forged documents of LLF and RES, and threatened Prakash and asked him to step down from the position of president of JRRES, the charge sheet stated.

In 2016, Raffles was in news for closing down its premium fashion designing colleges in Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai, leaving students in lurch.

Meanwhile, in another development, Raffles directors including the chairman Chew Hua Seng, his wife Doris Chung and four others were arrested by the Singapore Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) last month in relation to certain irregularities of a loan taken from Malaysia-based Affin Bank.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)