NT Reporter
Panaji
The High Court of Bombay at Goa has quashed look out circulars (LOC) issued against four persons in connection with the alleged Rs 100 crore ‘share market’ scam.
The LOCs had been issued by the Economic Offences Cell (EOC) of Goa Police against seven people, including Navnik Mario Pereira, Sushant Manohar Ghodge, Nolan Lawrence Antao, and Vijay Dattatray Joil, to prevent them from leaving the country.
The four had approached the HC seeking to quash the FIR and the related LOCs.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Nivedita P Mehta ruled that the LOCs cannot be sustained as the petitioners have not been chargesheeted.
“Upon a categorical submission being made that no chargesheet has been filed against the petitioners on account of lack of evidence… since the petitioners are not prosecuted in connection with the subject FIR, the action under the lookout circular definitely must fail,” the bench observed.
Senior counsel Nitin Sardessai, representing the petitioners, placed the final report filed under Section 173 of the CrPC and submitted that it does not name the petitioners as accused.
The report was submitted to the Sessions Court, South Goa, on May 9, 2025.
The court observed that although the petitioners were listed as accused Nos. 3 to 7, the chargesheet included the remark “lack of evidence” against their names. Their names also did not feature in the original complaint or FIR.
The EOC had earlier registered the case against five directors of Idylic Goan Gateways and Developments Pvt Ltd, including Joil, Pereira, Ghodge, Antao, and Pires.
The company was allegedly linked to a scam in which Myron Rodrigues and his wife Deepali Parab reportedly duped investors, mostly from Salcete, by promising high returns on share market investments.
Rodrigues is accused of transferring over Rs 3.2 crore between November 2022 and June 2023 to Idylic Goan Gateways and another Rs 2 crore to
Prospect Realty for business purposes.
