Nidhi Harvest apparently collected some Rs 50 crore from all over the country during 1996-97, promising interest rates as high as 21 per cent. The majority of the deposits were mobilised from Chennai, where police complaints were filed and some directors of the company arrested.

In Mumbai, the depositors were given post-dated interest cheques payable at par at branches of the ANZ Grindlays Bank. It was when the cheques began to bounce in June 1997 that the depositors got restive.

One advocate, K V George, discovered as early as October 1997 that the company's office at Fort had been wound up and that its director based in Mumbai, Ravi Vardhan, could not be traced. Since, then the depositors have been fighting a battle to get the police to trace the directors.

Thecompany had publicised its activity mainly by word-of-mouth publicity. The depositors, a the majority of whom belonged to a particular community in South India, have even formed an association and two of them have moved the Bombay High Court for directions to get the police to speed up the investigation. A police team led by ACP M B Ghorpade of the EOW, Mumbai, in fact, arrested Krishnan from Chennai last week.