Dilip Pendse, former Tata Finance chief, commits suicide: Here's how he defrauded the company

Dilip Pendse, former managing director of Tata Finance, committed suicide in the first floor of Royal Grace building in Dadar East on Wednesday by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his office. He was 61 years old. Pendse, who was sacked from Tata Finance in 2001 for illegal transactions, was reportedly dealing with a slew of cases. The Pendses lived on the second floor of the same building in Dadar. Quoting police officials, the  India Today report said that a suicide note was found in which Pendse said no one should be blamed. He mentioned that he was frustrated over the legal cases that persisted over the years and decided to end his life. [caption id=“attachment_3780983” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The case Pendse was appointed managing director of Tata Finance for five years from June 1996 to May 2001. After expiry of his term, Pendse informed the company that he did not intend to seek reappointment, according to a  PTI report. During his tenure at the company, he was alleged to have committed insider trading. In a probe, the Securities and Exchange Board of India found that Pendse had conspired with other officers to commit fraud of Rs 400 crore. He was accused of diverting money from deposits of Tata Finance subsidiaries, Niskalp Investments and Inshallah Investments, to invest in stocks such as Himachal Futuristic Communications, Global Telesystems, Veerangana Software, etc. These stocks had crashed during the 2000 dot-com bust. Anuradha Pendse and Nalini Properties were alleged to have sold shares of Tata Finance in March 2001 on the basis of unpublished price sensitive information relating to the financial position of the company. Pendse and Anuradha were alleged to have leaked price sensitive information that Tata Finance had suffered a loss of Rs 79.37 crore consequent to its investment in Niskalp Investment. The Sebi informed the company about Pendse’s cheating in 2001. He resigned as director of Nishkalp, which had run huge losses in investments, in June 2001. In August 2001, Tata Finance filed an FIR with economic offences alleging that Pendse had siphoned off huge funds from Niskalp Trading Company. In February 2003, Pendse, who was with Tata Finance for long, was arrested by the Delhi Police for alleged involvement in misappropriation of Rs 2 crore. A complaint was filed on behalf of Inshaallah Investment, alleging that Pendse issued cheques for Rs 2 crore to brokers for payment of personal transactions of a former company director. The Securities Appellate Tribunal set aside charges of insider trading against Pendse and his wife Anuradha Pendse and Nalini Properties in 2009. The restriction which prevented Dilip Pendse from trading in the market was also set aside. In October 2014, the markets watchdog Sebi had found Pendse guilty of illegal trades and banned him from accessing capital markets for two years. (With inputs from PTI)