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Three fresh cases of banking fraud reported, Rahul attacks PM
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SME Times News Bureau | 24 Feb, 2018
Close on the heels of a massive Rs 11,300 crore PNB scam, three fresh
financial frauds have come to light including the alleged involvement of
a Delhi-based jeweller, who has been accused of defrauding the Oriental
Bank of Commerce (OBC) to the tune of about Rs 390 crore through
Letters of Credit.
The fresh exposure provided Congress President
Rahul Gandhi an opportunity to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
saying that like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, these promoters have also
disappeared while the government looked the other way.
On
Thursday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case
against Delhi's Karol Bagh-based diamond jewellery exporting firm Dwarka
Das Seth International for an alleged bank loan fraud of Rs 389.85
crore involving the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC).
The agency
on Wednesday filed a case against businessman Amit Singla and others on a
complaint of the Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) of criminal misappropriation
of a loan he had taken through forged documents.
The same day,
the agency also filed a case against Inder Chand Chundawat, the then
Senior Branch Manager in the Punjab National Bank's (PNB) Barmer office
in Rajasthan, for alleged abuse of his official position by depositing
various government subsidies to the tune of Rs 1.57 crore in a
fictitious account. The official was suspended following an internal
inquiry.
Last week, the banking sector was rocked by major
financial frauds -- involving Rs 11,300 crore by diamantaire Nirav Modi
and Rs 3,695 crore by Rotomac owner Vikram Kothari -- surfaced in which
the CBI has filed cases and made several arrests.
After the PNB
and the Bank of Baroda, the OBC, BoM and Barmer office of the PNB rushed
to the CBI with their complaints of fraud, leading to the agency filing
three separate cases.
The OBC has alleged that it was defrauded
by Dwarka Das Seth International and its owner Sabhya Seth. The loans
turned into non-performing assets (NPAs) way back in 2014, but the bank
approached the agency on August 16 last year, after the company had
folded up and Seth fled the country.
The CBI has started tracing India-based directors and partners of the company.
The
OBC complaint has alleged that Dwarka Das Seth International took loans
by way of letters of credit and other such credit facilities for gold
jewellery export/import between 2007 and 2012 but failed to pay back.
A
probe by the bank found that the company had indulged in round-tripping
of funds through fictitious companies abroad and had utilised funds by
discounting bills based on the letters of credit of foreign banks, which
were either non-existent or had negative ratings.
Similarly, BoM
has approached the CBI to lodge a loan default complaint against a
Delhi businessman Amit Singla. The loan had turned into an NPA in 2013
and the bank has even sold a property kept as collateral to recover its
dues, sources said.
The BoM's FIR names Singla, the proprietor of
Delhi-based Ashirwad Chain Co, loan guarantor Roshan Lal Bhalotia,
property valuation firm Tech Mach International and unknown officials of
the bank.
It is alleged that Singla and his company took loans
of Rs 9.5 crore through cash credit facility from the bank between 2010
and 2012. The accused allegedly submitted three properties in Delhi and
Haryana as collaterals. The properties, at the time of taking the loan,
were valued at over Rs 18 crore by Tech Mach International.
But,
after the loans turned into NPAs, the actual market value of the
properties were found to be only Rs 2.5 crore. One of the properties, a
double-storied house owned by Roshan Lal in Rohtak, Haryana, was valued
at Rs 4.85 crore while sanctioning the loan. When the bank sold it off
to recover its dues, it fetched only Rs 73 lakh.
Similarly, a
commercial property owned by the accused at Chandni Chowk in Delhi was
valued by Tech Mach at the time of disbursal of the loans at Rs 4.95
crore, but it was actually worth Rs 31 lakh only. Tech Mach was later
removed from the panel of valuers by the bank.
In the complaint,
the BoM said: "The overvalued valuations were deliberately given in
connivance with the borrowers and the guarantors ... to fraudulently
induce the bank to finance the borrower."
The FIR also alleged
that Singla had submitted inflated stock audit reports and balance
sheets, apart from diverting the loans to sister concerns. In the light of the emergence of three fresh cases of fraud, Rahul Gandhi attacked the Prime Minister.
"Under
Modiji's 'Jan-Dhan Loot Yojana', another scam! 390 crore, involving a
Delhi-based jeweller. Same Modus operandi as Nirav Modi. Fake LOUs,"
wrote Gandhi in Twitter.
"Predictably, like Mallya and Nirav,
this promoter too has disappeared while the Govt looked the other way,"
he added with hashtag #ModiRobsIndia.
Union Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley said on Saturday the discourse needed to move on from ease of
doing business to that of Indian industry's responsibility to become
ethical in the way it does business.
He said political corruption
at the Centre had "reduced significantly" after the ruling NDA
government ended the administration's discretionary powers in awarding
contracts and allocation of resources.
The sale of electoral
bonds from next week, he added, would be a decisive step in cleaning up
the system of political funding in the country.
On Friday, Modi
spoke about the bank fraud for the first time at the ET Global Business
Summit saying government would take "stern action" against
irregularities.
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