Fake artworks case: Court rejects closure report, directs further probe

MUMBAI: A local court has rejected the closure report filed by the Tardeo police into the case where a Mumbai-based art dealer and others had allegedly sold fake artworks to the India head of a US-based private equity firm, defrauding him of ₹17.90 crore.

The complainant, Puneet Bhatia, had alleged in December 2023 that the accused persons had sold him fake paintings of renowned Indian artists such as Jamini Roy, MF Husain, among others, and had even provided fabricated certificates of authenticity and provenance for these works.

The court has directed the Tardeo police to further investigate the case, while allowing Bhatia’s protest petition, which claimed that the police investigation was not satisfactory.

In its March 3 order, the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court at Girgaum noted that the assistant public prosecutor, while responding to the protest petition for a further investigation, had stated that she had “no objection to the same”. The prosecution had told the court in February that it felt the grounds were genuine.

The protest petition listed several grounds including that forensic reports had not been considered on account of the Bombay Police Manual, 1959. The forensic report had specifically stated that there was a discrepancy between the purported signature of artist MF Husain on certificates provided to the complainant and specimens of the artist’s authentic signature.

The petition alleged that the police had failed to record a “proper statement” of the prime accused, and instead appeared to have conducted a “soft” probe through a questionnaire. It also alleged that the accused had induced the petitioner to purchase the artworks and shared forged/fabricated affidavits and provenance certificates.

The court order also recorded the submission of the investigating officer, that the complainant allegedly “did not produce the disputed original paintings before him for proper investigation”. A C-Summary closure report, which is the type of report submitted in this case, refers to an investigation which concludes that there is no evidence to support the allegations and the case is neither true nor false.

The prosecution had informed the court that the police had tried to investigate the authenticity of the alleged paintings, for which they had contacted various art galleries, experts and relatives of late artists through phone calls, emails, letters and personal visits.

The police had stated that of the total ₹17.90 crore Bhatia had paid the accused for what he believed were genuine artworks, a sum of ₹2.2 crore had been returned. This gave the police the impression that this was a civil case, leading them to file a C-Summary closure report.

In a separate but related development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had initiated a money laundering investigation based on the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Tardeo police under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, in December 2023. The ED’s probe is underway and the agency is yet to submit its final report.

The ED had conducted searches at six locations in the city in March 2024, as reported by HT on March 17, 2024. The agency had seized digital devices and documents which revealed the alleged operations of a cartel involved in trading fake artworks, the generation of fake authenticity and provenance certificates, transfer of money through cash, and the involvement of prominent art galleries and individuals.

The ED had claimed the cartel allegedly involved “a prominent art gallery in South Mumbai, a corporate lawyer and bullion traders, wherein fake artworks of original paintings were passed off as genuine art pieces”, of renowned artists such as Jamini Roy, MF Husain, FN Souza, Jahangir Sabavala, SH Raza, NS Bendre, Ram Kumar, among others.

The ED’s probe found that the cartel allegedly operated with the help of people claiming fake origins with royal kingdoms, antique art collectors and small-time artists, who created the replicas as well as fake documents relating to these fabricated artworks. The money trail revealed that the proceeds received were sent by illegal hawala routes to members of the cartel in the form of commissions or fees, ED sources said.