UCO bank loan fraud: CBI to question ex-CMD

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SME Times News Bureau | 16 Apr, 2018
The CBI will soon question former Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of UCO Bank Arun Kaul in connection with its ongoing probe into an alleged Rs 737 crore bank loan fraud case, officials said on Sunday.

A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official, privy to the investigation, told IANS: "We will summon Kaul for questioning in a day or two."

Earlier, the agency filed a case against Kaul, Era Engineering Infra India Ltd (EEIL), its CMD Hem Singh Bharana, two chartered accountants -- Pankaj Jain and Vandna Sharda -- and Pawan Bansal of Altius Finserve Pvt Ltd among others in connection with the alleged Rs 621 crore loan fraud which has caused a loss of over Rs 737 crore to the bank.

The case was filed on the bank's complaint, which is now part of the FIR.

After filing the case, the CBI on Saturday carried out searches at over 10 places in Delhi and Mumbai including at Kaul's residence, the premises of the CAs and the two firms.

The CBI official said the agency sleuths are going through the documents they recovered. "Once we complete our study of the recovered documents, we will call Kaul," he said.

The accused persons hatched a criminal conspiracy and allegedly defrauded UCO Bank of about Rs 621 crore by diversion and siphoning of two bank loans.

Kaul was the CMD of UCO Bank between 2010 and 2015. According to CBI officials, he allegedly facilitated the accused company in obtaining the loan.

The CBI said the loan was secured by producing false end-use certificates issued by the chartered accountants and by fabricating business data and it was not utilised for the sanctioned purpose.

In its complaint, the bank alleged that the two loans were issued to the company in 2010 -- Rs 200 crore in March and Rs 450 crore in October.

The Rs 200 crore loan was issued for repayment of high cost debt to the Central Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and IFCI.

The bank alleged that the company diverted the funds and no money was repaid to the Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, while only Rs 59 lakh was repaid towards the dues of IFCI.

Chartered Accountant Jain dishonestly and fraudulently did not mention the details of the utilisation of the term loan in the end-use certificate.

In the case of the Rs 450 crore loan too, the funds were utilised for purposes other than stipulated in the sanction and the end-use certificates given by the chartered accountants were intentionally ambiguous and against the facts, it alleged.

The account was declared a non-performing asset on July 7, 2013 by the bank and the present balance as on December 31, 2017 is Rs 737.88 crore.