Former Tata Finance MD Dilip Pendse commits suicide: All you need to know about 'Tata Group's blue-eyed boy'

Former Tata Finance Managing Director Dilip Sudhakar Pendse allegedly committed suicide on Wednesday. The body of Pendse was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his private office on the first floor of Royal Grace Building in Dadar East yesterday afternoon. Pendse was 61 and survived by his wife Pratima. All you need to know about Dilip Pendse

• Dilip Sudhakar Pendse was a commerce graduate. He studied at SV Joshi High School in Dombivali and later at the Mulund College of Commerce. 

• Pendse was the Managing Director at Tata Finance from the early '90s to 2001. However, he was fired in 2001 on the charges of siphoning off company funds through two subsidiaries, Nishkalp Investments and Inshallah Investments.
• In the late 1990s, it was reported that Pendse allegedly diverted Tata Finance depositors' funds through two subsidiaries - Nishkalp Investments and Inshallah Investments - and invested them in various new economy stocks such as Himachal Futuristic Communications, Global Telesystems and Veerangana Software.
• When these stocks tumbled during 2001 dot-com bust, it raised questions over the security of depositors' investment. The fraud came to light in April 2001 when Sebi started its enquiries after Tata Finance made an application to raise Rs 90 crore through a rights issue. The investigation revealed that the funds were further diverted by Pendse to his personal companies.
• Following the Sebi's findings, the Tata Group hired AF Fergusson as an independent auditor to scrutinise the company's books. Fergusson concluded that investments in two subsidiaries - Nishkalp Investments and Inshallah Investments - had caused the company a loss of nearly Rs 450 crore.
• In December 2012, market regulator Sebi banned Pendse from the capital market for two years, almost 13 years after the case was filed. However, the order was later quashed by the Securities Appellate Tribunal or SAT.  
• Dilip Pendse was once believed to be a part of Ratan Tata's inner circle. Business Standard referred to an interview in which Pendse claimed that "Tata used to talk to me regularly and we used to discuss various matters, including matters of Tata Finance".