Mumbai: DHFL’s Kapil Wadhawan approved unsecured loans in 6 minutes

Unsecured loans amounting to Rs. 416 crores were sanctioned by Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) promoter Kapil Wadhawan to Radius Group concerns of builder Sanjay Chhabria during a period of four months in 2018 after Yes Bank invested in DHFL. Some of these approvals took place over emails from Kapil Wadhawan to his team in as short as 22 minutes and 6 minutes after it forwarded the loan proposals to him.

The Central Bureau of Investigation says this in its supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court last month in which it claims Chhabria conspired with co-accused to misappropriate funds DHFL received as loans from Yes Bank. Chhabria was arrested on Apr 28. He and his five companies have been added to the list of now 20 accused in the case which include Yes Bank’s founder and former CEO and MD Rana Kapoor, his family members and DHFL’s Wadhawan brothers Kapil and Dheeraj.

The chargesheet states the probe revealed that investments made by Yes Bank in bonds of DHFL were intricately linked to loans sanctioned by DHFL to Chhabria’s Radius Group concerns. Loans of about Rs. 3,094 crores were sanctioned by DHFL to the companies of Chhabria shortly after receipt of the bank’s investment.

Investments were permitted by Kapil by way of mails to his team and that the agency’s probe found Kapil Wadhawan had had developed a practice in DHFL wherein he used to permit disbursement of loans or funds to several entities by according approval on mails, without any appraisal.

Of the 416 crores, the chargesheet states that Rs. 80 crores was approved by Kapil within 22 minutes after a mail was received from his team regarding it. The amount was disbursed on the same day without any further approval, it stated. In another instance, Rs. 70 crores was approved by Kapil within six minutes of receiving mail. In this manner, it said, 416 crores was sanctioned to Radius Group companies without any appraisal. 49 units in a BKC project were offered by Radius Group firms to DHFL for these loans as mortgages. The chargesheet states that an employee of the Radius group has stated that these units were already mortgaged to other lenders and hence “simply did not exist”.

Subsequently, it said, when DHFL officers pursued the Radius Group for repayment of the loans, Chhabaria refused to provide any mortgage or to repay the loans and maintained that the Wadhawan brothers owe him over Rs. 250 crores. The chargesheet said that DHFL’s head of project finance division took this up with Kapil Wadhawan, who did not deny Chhabria’s claim. In 2019, Dheeraj Wadhawan offered a property owned by his firm M/s RKW Developers Pvt. Ltd. for the loans availed by Radius Group. Two other properties of companies owned by him were also offered as security.

Accused builder offers to deposit Rs. 4 Cr in Yes Bank’s account

On Thursday, builder Satyan Tandon, arrested last month in the case, made a plea before a special CBI court seeking bank details of Yes Bank to deposit Rs. 4 cr in it. The court permitted the same noting that ultimately Yes Bank is the victim of the offence and directed the investigating officer to get the bank’s account details for the deposit of the amount. It noted that this amount is alleged to be used by Tandon for his personal benefit. Tandon’s advocate had told the court that he is not admitting guilt, but wishes to deposit the amount and assures that he would not claim it in future.

Published on: Friday, July 15, 2022, 12:00 AM IST