Hyderabad: Former IAS officer's wife lodges police complaint after dubious loan app issued threats

Hyderabad: Police have registered a case after the wife of a former IAS officer filed a complaint against callers from a dubious loan application for issuing threats and trying to extort money.

Meena Pal, a resident of Banjara Hills, filed a complaint detailing a series of threatening phone calls and claims of a dubious loan application.

The incident reportedly involved an individual named 'Ananya', who identified herself as a member of the legal team at Shaha Finlease, a private finance company headquartered in Mumbai. According to Pal, the caller accused her of being involved in a loan application submitted by Ishan Chowdhury. The company claimed that Pal's name and contact information were associated with the loan application, an allegation she vehemently denies.

Pal said she initially received a call from an unidentified woman whose voice indicated she was representing a bank. Due to the unclear conversation and her health condition, Pal handed the phone over to her husband, Indrajit Pal, a retired IAS officer who served as the Special Chief Secretary in the State and retired as a Secretary in the Central Government.

During the conversation between Pal and 'Ananya,' it was alleged that Chowdhury had defaulted on a loan with Standard Chartered Bank and had used Pal's name in the loan application submitted to Shaha Finlease.

The caller refused to provide details about the alleged loan, including the amount, date, and location. Instead, she threatened legal action, including filing a money recovery suit in the Andheri Courts in Mumbai, against Pal.

The family further claimed that 'Ananya' repeatedly stated that Chowdhury was not responding to their attempts to contact him and insisted that Pal was involved in the loan. Pal clarified that Chowdhury was merely their former tenant who vacated the premises over four years ago.

To ascertain the veracity of the claims, the family reached out to Ishan Chowdhury, who is currently employed with a multinational company in Kolkata. Chowdhury denied any involvement in sharing Pal's details with either Standard Chartered Bank or Shaha Finlease.

The family suspected that this sequence of events was an attempt to extort money from them by falsely implicating them in Chowdhury's financial matters. According to the complaint given by Meena Pal, a case has been registered at Banjara Hills police station under IPC sections 506 and 509. The case is currently under investigation.