Court drops charges against Sunil Gavaskar

A local court dropped the case against Gavaskar who was one of the directors of Topline Shoes, which had allegedly duped investors.

A local court on Tuesday dropped the case against Sunil Gavaskar who was one of the directors of Vadodara-based foot-wear company Topline Shoes Ltd, which had allegedly duped investors.

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Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate HL Velani dropped all charges against Gavaskar after his counsels contended that the batting legend had resigned as a board member from the company much before it went bust.

"We had filed an application before the court to remove Gavaskar's name from the list of the accused in this case. We had argued earlier that Gavaskar who was based in Mumbai was now not associated with the company and had resigned from the company's board ... Four years prior to the date of offence," Gavaskar's counsel SV Raju said.

"Today the court considered our discharge application (filed a few months back) and removed him as an accused from this case," Raju added.

The Registrar of Companies (RoC) in Ahmedabad had filed a case against all the board members of the company, including Gavaskar in 1999 after the company had defrauded investors and had vanished.

The case was filed by the RoC after the company did not file details of its Annual General meeting and annual returns for two consecutive years.

Gavaskar also had to make a court appearance at Ahmedabad in December 2005 in connection with the hearing of this case. However, the case will continue against other directors of the company who were named as accused by the RoC.