The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday filed chargesheets against late stock broker Harshad Mehta and two brothers at a designated court in Mumbai in the mysterious missing of 2.7 million shares belonging to about 70 companies.

Besides Harshad, his brothers Ashwin Mehta and Sudhir Mehta and leading stock brokers like Dinesh Shah, Mukesh Gupta and Acharya Arun Dev were named in the chargesheet by the CBI.

Harshad Mehta has been named in column two of the chargesheet as he was dead.

According to the chargesheet, in June 1999 Mehta brothers had alleged that 2.7 million shares belonging to them were either misplaced or stolen by somebody when they were in the custody of the CBI during June 1992 to October 1992.

The allegation was made by the brothers almost seven years after the alleged missing of shares, which had been legally attached to the Custodian appointed by the court.

Taking a serious view of the allegation of the Mehta brothers, the special court trying the securities scam cases directed the CBI to investigate the matter and during which the agency established that the shares in question were in fact clandestinely 'removed' by the Mehta brothers themselves, the chargesheet alleged.

The Mehta brothers had got the shares removed clandestinely after the income tax carried out raids against them and the court issued notification for attaching their properties, it alleged.

The Mehta brothers had transferred these shares in the name of their benami companies and associates by forging the share transfer forms, the chargesheet alleged.

After giving new ownership to these shares, the Mehta brothers themselves introduced these shares into the market between 1993 and 1995 through various brokers and sold them away, the CBI alleged.

The chargesheet claimed that the Mehta brothers received sale proceeds from these brokers through various intermediaries which were actually meant to be handed over to the Custodian.

The CBI contended that the allegation of Mehta brothers were not only false but intentionally lodged with an ulterior motive of concealing the existence of 2.7 million shares which had already old in the market and made million of rupees.

The chargesheet was filed under sections 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy) and others sections of cheating and forgery of the Indian Penal Code.