Mumbai: Private firm, directors booked in Rs 63 crore ban

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently registered a case of criminal conspiracy and cheating against a private company having offices in Mumbai and Ahmedabad for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 63.44 crore to a consortium of banks with Bank of Baroda as the lead bank.

According to the CBI, a written complaint had been received from Surendra Kumar Singhal, an assistant general manager from the Bank of Baroda, against a private company engaged in the business of trading steel products since 1964 in Mumbai.The company has its registered office at Masjid Bunder, with its corporate office and directors in Ahmedabad.

“The bank in its complaint has alleged that the borrowing entity had not utilised the finance from the lender for the specific purposes for which the finance was availed of, but had diverted the fund for other purposes,” the bank said in its complaint to the CBI. According to the complaint,the account was categorised as a non-performing asset (NPA) in June 2016 and a forensic audit of the account was done in October 2018.

“The forensic audit revealed that the borrowing company, its promoters, along with other unknown persons, in pursuance of a well-knitted criminal conspiracy and with dishonest intention of causing wrongful loss to the bank and wrongful gain to themselves, diverted and siphoned off the funds disbursed to them dishonestly and misappropriated the amount,” the Bank's complaint added.