Cobblers Scam

Cobbler scam is one of the biggest scams that has happened in the Indian history which involves
money worth several multi million dollars. This scam was most popularly discussed as the Great
Cobbler scam. The cobbler scam revolved around a number of political heads and even top
businessmen siphoned off lot of illegal money into their own account which is a huge figure of
about $600 million US dollars. This money was actually allotted by the government of India
especially for the benefit and the well being of the poor cobblers of Mumbai to provide loans to
the poor cobblers at the very low rate of interest and tax modification for even after 16 hours of
work they ended up earning only 80-100 rupees per day. The cause of action and the method of
working behind the cobbler’s scheme were to activate a cooperative society which would enable
the cobblers to make use of the advantage of soft government loans with different types of
schemes which was available. But the politician and the top business heads just to make use of
these soft loans came up with a number of bogus small companies and societies. Some of the
main people who were involved in the cobbler scam were Saddrudin Daya, former sheriff of
Mumbai and owner of Dawood Shoes, Rafique Tejani, Owner of metro Shoes, Kishore
Signapurkar, proprietor of Milano Shoes, and Abu Asim Azmi, president of Samajwadi Party’s
Mumbai unit and partner in Citywalk Shoes. Apart from these people it also involved various
officials of banks and financial institution. The primary accused in the multi-crores shoes scam is
Sohin Daya, son of former Sheriff of Mumbai. They carried out their activities by forming
fabricated or imaginary cooperative societies for cobbler. Once these fictious cooperatives
societies were created the main heads involved in the scam made use of the scheme for
fraudulent activities for availing loans of crores and crores of rupees from different banks which
supported the cobbler scam.there were also lot of bank officials who were involved in this scam,
these banks and also bank officials were later identified and charge sheeted.

The cobbler scam was unearthed and came to light in 1995. Nearly 3 big agencies worked hard
to exposed the big shots involved in the cobbler scam to the public which involved Rs 1600
crore.

The first action or investigation taken into consideration in this matter after the first complaint
filed by the officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s octroi department when they
realized there was enormous quantity of raw materials which were brought into the Mumbai city

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on an extremely huge scale. The duty which was levied on these materials was at considerable
concessions as they were into the city in the name of the fictitious cooperative societies which
were formed by the people involved in the scam. As a result of this investigation in 1995, Sudhir
Thakre, the then joint registrar of the cooperative society for Mumbai division gave an
authoritative instruction to do a complete survey of all the registered societies which came under
Mumbai division.

The survey stated that most of these socities did not exist at the registered addresses furnished
attached to this office. During an exclusive interview to Express Newsline Sudhir Thakre stated
that the series of actions or steps taken in the investigation into the big business way to success
through factitious cobbler societies. But however because of the fact or quality of being more
merciful or tolerant from the registrar’s part was misused by the businessman who were all
involved in the cobbler scam. However by January 1996 there was a clear picture given
regarding the scam when flying squads with the registrar were given specific orders to follow a
particular society to ots very last. Based on the evidence of first impression, a report was
prepared by the police towards march 1996. Apart from Sudhir Thakre’s team, the Economic
Offences Wing headed by DCP Sanjay Pandey was also worked on the cobblers scam. After
completion of about 19 raids and 51 societies were being investigated detailed reports of nearly
80 to 90 pages were ready by September 1996.

Some of the political parties who were implicated in the scam where from three major political
parties like the congress, the BJP and the Shiv Sena. Top politicians from these parties were
involved. Former Maharashtra chief minister, Sharad Pawar was involved as the Tejani to be a
director of the Rs 500-crore Dynamix Dairy Products Pvt Ltd in which Pawar is believed to have
a stake through the holdings of family members. However it is also stated that in spite of no
direct evidence implicating the congress leader.

Many people along with Sadruddin Daya, the prime accused in the case and former sheriff of
Mumbai, his wife Shauheen, two international banks and five co-operative banks have also been
charge sheeted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The charge-sheets were
filed before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Sharad N Chimade. However, Rafique
Tejani ofMetro Shoes, Kishore Signapurkar of Milano Shoes and Abu Asim Azmi of City walk
Shoes have not been charge-sheeted. EOW officials said the role of the three companies in the

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scam is still being investigated. The sections of IPC under which the above suspects are charges
include criminal conspiracy1, forgery2, preparing and using duplicated documents for financial
benefits3, criminal breach of trust4, cheating, jumping bail limits, fraudulently setting up fake co-
operative societies and making money.

According to Section 120A of the IPC, when two or more persons agree to commit an offense punishable with
death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment of either description for a term of two years or upwards, or to cause
such an offense to be committed, the agreement in designated a criminal conspiracy

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According to Section 463 of the Indian Penal Code, "whoever makes any false document or electronic record or
part of a document or electronic record with intent to cause damage or injury, to the public or to any person, or to
support any claim or title, or to cause any person to part with property, or to enter into any express or implied
contract, or with intent to commit fraud or that fraud may be committed, commits forgery.

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Section 464 if the IPC
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Section 405 of the IPC

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Bibliography
Newspaper Articles

1. Business Standard.com (1997, July 17)

http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/daya-among-28-chargesheeted-
cobbler-scam-197071701015_1.html

2. IndiaToday.in (1996, December 31)

https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19961231-cobbler-scam-shoe-
firms-charged-with-misappropriating-concessionary-funds-834263-1996-12-31

3. EconomicTimes.com(2019, August 31)

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Cobbler-Scam

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