FIR filed against five people after complaint by Nitin Desai's wife over abetment of suicide and other charges

Raigad police in Maharashtra on Friday registered an offence against five persons including Edelweiss Groupchairman Rashesh Shah for alleged abetment of art director Nitin Desai’s suicide.

A First Information Report was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 34 (common intention) at Khalapur police station based on a complaint filed by Desai’s wife Neha Desai, an official said.

The FIR named Edelweiss chairman Rashesh Shah, company official Smit Shah, another person named Keur Mehta, R K Bansal of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company, and Jitender Kothari who has been appointed by the NCLT as an interim resolution professional, the police official said. The accused will be asked to join the probe, he added.

Her husband was facing repeated mental harassment in connection with the loans his company had taken and he committed suicide because of it, Neha Desai alleged in the complaint.

Desai, who had worked for acclaimed Bollywood films such as “Lagaan” and “Jodhaa Akbar“, allegedly hanged himself at his studio at Karjat in Raigad district on Wednesday.

His company had defaulted on a Rs 252 crore loan repayment to creditors and the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal had initiated insolvency proceedings against it.

Desai’s company ND’s Art World Pvt Ltdhad borrowed Rs 185 crore through two loans from ECL Finance in 2016 and 2018, and troubles with repayments started from January 2020. ECL Finance is a non-banking finance arm of the Edelweiss Group.

Hansal Mehta’s tribute to Desai

The filmmaker recently paid tribute to the art director who passed away Wednesday morning by suicide due to the financial crisis. While paying respect to the late influential personality, Mehta recalled his tough phase and wrote, “Financial pressures in an industry run on emotions can be debilitating. I have faced many a crisis particularly after Omertà and Simran. The failure of the film and the cycle of debt I got into had led me towards a very dark place. The involvement of ‘powerful’ mediators or shall I say coercive forces made things even worse. It was a scary time.”

Hansal concluded by quoting, “The great Nitin Desai’s tragic passing away and talks of his troubles got me revisiting that time. Am terribly sad at the loss of a remarkable artist. Om Shanti.”

With inputs from agencies