A non-bailable warrant has been issued against Malavika Hegde, wife of late Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder VG Siddhartha and seven other directors of the company in a cheque bounce case.
Siddartha, the founder of Coffee Day Global Limited (CDGL), which manages CCD, died due to drowning in Nethravathi river in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka last year. Malavika Hegde is the daughter of former Union Minister SM Krishna.
The warrant has been issued by a civil court in Mudigere in Karnataka's Chikkamagaluru district, summoning the directors to appear before the court on a complaint filed by a coffee planter, K Nandish.
In his petition filed before the Joint Magistrate First Class in June this year, Nandish alleged that the company had issued cheques to coffee cultivators twice, which bounced on both occasions and demanded the arrest of the accused.
The petition stated that CDGL had issued 10 cheques, post-dated, for purchase of green coffee beans from him worth over Rs 45 lakhs. When Nandish deposited the cheques at Axis Bank in Chikkamagaluru, he was informed that the transaction could not happen due to insufficient balance in the payee's account, the complaint said.
"The first date of appearance was October 6. Since they (directors of CDGL) failed to appear before the magistrate on the said date in spite of serving of the summons, the court has issued a non-bailable warrant," News agency PTI quoted Nandish's lawyer, Halekote A Thejawi as saying.
Court asked accused to appear before it on Nov11 & get warrant recalled
On Wednesday, Nandish said he had been supplying coffee seeds to the company ABC for many years.
"When Siddhartha was alive, he used to issue post-dated cheques with an interest of 10 to 12%. After his death, all our payments were held up but later the people in the organisation assured us that they will honour their cheques and our money will not go anywhere," Nandish told reporters, adding that the company promised to clear the dues by November.
Reacting on the matter, a CCD spokesperson said that the company had outstanding payments to 1,020 coffee planters of Chikkamagaluru and Hassan districts one year back. "We have fully paid back 700 plus planters in the last 11 months. We have also made part payments to the remaining planters. The group's fundraising plans were hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic and hence the delay in completing the payments," the spokesperson said.
