Indore News: EOW Files FIR Against Businessman, Former Bank Officials In

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The economic offences wing (EOW), Indore registered a case against a businessman and several others, including former bank officials, for allegedly defrauding a bank of Rs 40 lakh using forged property documents.

DSP Nandani Sharma said that the case was registered against the primary applicant, businessman Chandrashekhar Pachori; co-obligant Rammohan Agrawal, who provided forged property details; Jatin Gupta, a former bank manager; and Kamlesh Darwani, a former credit manager and proprietor of Shanta Marketing, Indore.

The investigation was initiated following a complaint by Anand Shivanand Totad, deputy general manager of the bank.

According to the complainant, Chandrashekhar Pachori, proprietor of M/s Jai Shiv & Company, conspired with others to secure a loan through deceitful means.

In April 2018, Pachori opened a current account at the bank and applied for a Rs 40 lakh loan at the another branch for the purported purchase of machinery. To secure the loan, he presented Rammohan Agrawal as a co-obligent, offering a plot in Usha Nagar Extension as collateral.

DSP Sharma further said that although the property was presented as an open plot, investigation revealed that Rammohan Agrawal had already constructed 13 flats and 6 shops on the site back in 2001 and sold them off. By the time the loan was sanctioned in 2018, he no longer owned the property.

Despite a panel valuer providing photos of a multi-storey building on the site, the then-branch manager of the bank Jatin Gupta deliberately omitted this fact in the due-diligence report.

Credit manager Kamlesh Darwani recommended the loan based on a "technically and financially sound" project report without verifying the authenticity of bills, quotations, or the co-obligent's status. The fraud came to light after the loan account was declared a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) on May 1, 2023, due to non-payment.

The accused have been booked under sections 420 (Cheating), 467 (Forgery of valuable security), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using forged document as genuine), and 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, along with Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.

Further investigation is underway.