On the complaint of a former soldier Baban Bhosle, the FIR was filed against Somaiya for siphoning Rs 57 crores collected through crowd-funding in 2013-14 to reserve INS Vikrant. Sanjay Raut said “Somaiya and his aides collected the money through a campaign led by Somaiya in 2013-14 to turn the carrier into a museum. The collected money was supposed to be deposited with the Raj Bhavan. When I asked for the information from Raj Bhavan under the Right to Information Act, it established that the money was never deposited.”
Senior Police Inspector, Rehana Sheikh said, “A case has been registered against Kirit Somaiya and Neil Somaiya under Sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the Trombay Police station in Mumbai for INS Vikrant financial bungling.”
Somaiya said he is ready to face any action. “No scam has taken place, not even worth a rupee in Vikrant fund collection. I have not done anything wrong. I am not scared of any action. Raut has been pressing allegations but has not given proof to validate them. I have not received a copy of the FIR. I will keep exposing the Uddhav Thackeray government. I dare Thackeray to give information available to him.”
Somaiya spoke everything but did not answer a specific question about whether he collected the money and submitted it to the governor or the government. Raut alleged that Somaiya had collected money to save Vikrant to target then Congress chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s government, which declined to pay for preventing it from getting scrapped.
