Loan scam: Top brass chargesheeted

Mumbai: CBI has filed charge sheets in four cases registered by it last year against senior officials of a public sector bank and a private company for allegedly receiving kickbacks in sanctioning of loans.

Chargesheets have been filed against former LIC Housing finance CEO Ramchandra Nair, the then General Manager of Bank of India R N Tayal, the then Deputy General Manager of Punjab National Bank Venkoba Gujjal and Rajesh Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of private financial services firm Money Matters.

The charge sheets also named two employees of Money Matters - Sanjay Sharma and Suresh Gattani - as accused.

According to CBI, the accused bank officials colluded with the private company to sanction large loans to housing firms, overriding mandatory conditions for such approvals. They were also gathering confidential business information from financial institutions.

According to the charge sheets, Nair took a bribe of Rs 16 lakh, Tayal of Rs 45 lakh and Gujjal of Rs 25 lakh.

All the accused have been booked on the charge of criminal conspiracy under section 120-B of IPC and various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. CBI had earlier also filed a charge sheet against Maninder Singh Johar, Director of Central Bank of India in the same scam.

In the first charge sheet, CBI said the probe showed the then Secretary (Investment) LIC had received Rs 16 lakh as illegal gratification in three installments from the CMD of Mumbai-based private Financial Services Company.

In the second case, CBI said the CEO and Director, LIC HFL, had allegedly received Rs 45 lakh as illegal gratification from the CMD of the Mumbai-based private company for sanctioning high value loans to the client of accused private Financial Services Company, the spokesperson said.

In the third case, the then General Manager, Bank of India, had allegedly received Rs 25 lakh as illegal gratification from the CMD of the Mumbai-based private Financial Services Company for sanctioning high value loans to the client of accused private Financial Services Company, the CBI alleged.

In the fourth case, CBI alleged the then Deputy General Manager of Punjab National Bank, Delhi, had allegedly received Rs 7.5 lakh as bribe against the demand of Rs 20 lakh from the CMD of Mumbai-based private Financial Services Company for sanctioning high value loans to the client of accused private Finanial Services Company.

While all the accused were arrested soon after the cases were registered against them on November 22 last year by the economic offences wing of CBI, the accused were released on bail later.

During searches conducted by CBI, the agency had claimed to have found investments in crores of rupees by the accused bank officials in real estate.

The agency also claimed to have recovered documents showing Nair allegedly made Rs two crore investment, Gujjal's real estate investment was put at Rs 2.5 crore and Tayal's at Rs one crore.

The agency had also recovered cash and gold and silver jewellery from the accused's residences. Rs 21 lakh and gold ornaments worth the same amount was recovered from Gujjal's house, Rs 2.5 lakh in cash and Rs 20 lakh in bank accounts was seized from Nair's residence and Rs four lakh and 1.2 kilograms gold and one kilogram silver were found in Tayal's residence.

CBI has also told the court that it was further probing the scam and may file supplementary charge sheets.

Source: Financial Express