Bank loan fraud: CBI books Capt’s son-in-law, others
THE FRAUD TOOK PLACE AT UPBASED SIMBHAOLI SUGAR LIMITED, SAYS CBI FIR; THERE WAS ALLEGED FRAUDULENT DIVERSION OF ₹97 CR FROM A BANK LOAN
NEWDELHI: The CBI has registered a case against Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s son-in-law Gurpal Singh and other promoters and directors of UP-based Simbhaoli Sugar Limited for alleged fraudulent diversion of ₹97.85 crore from a bank loan.
A CBI official who doesn’t want to be identified said the central agency searched on Sunday the homes of company directors, including that of Gurpal Singh, and seven more places in Delhi, Hapur and Noida.
Gurpal Singh is married to Jai Inder Kaur, the chief minister’s only daughter. The company website describes Singh as one of its directors. But the Oriental Bank of Commerce, which filed the complaint of loan default, said he was the deputy managing director of the company during the period when the fraud happened.
Singh held 6.41% shares in the company on December 31, 2017, according to the shareholding pattern available on the website.
The chief minister was not available for comments. Also, the company couldn’t be contacted for its reaction. Calls to its corporate and administrative office in Noida went unanswered.
Other than Singh, the CBI has named the company chairman and managing director Gurmit Singh Mann and eight more directors as accused. All of them face charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal misconduct and criminal conspiracy. The central agency registered the case against the sugarmaking company this February after the state-owned bank declared the loan as a non-performing asset (NPA) in November 2016 and approached the CBI in November 2017.
The CBI case is based on a complaint that the bank had sanctioned a ₹148.60-crore loan in 2011 with the primary purpose of financing 5,762 sugarcane farmers with a cap of ₹ 3 lakh for each farmer.
The company was supposed to provide seed, fertiliser and necessary equipment to farmers. The bank took a list of farmers as well. The sugar company was supposed to route payment of sugarcane supplied to it by farmers through their loan accounts opened with the bank, the complaint says.
But the bank alleged that the company fraudulently diverted funds for paying arrears of sugarcane supplied before. The bank initiated debt recovery proceedings in January 2015 and declared the account as an NPA two months later.
During that period, the company allegedly sought a fresh corporate loan of ₹110 crore to clear the previous liability. The loan was sanctioned and a joint application was moved before the debt recovery tribunal and the previous case was withdrawn. But the new corporate loan turned into an NPA as well in Nov 2016, the bank alleged.