Mumbai: A special court designated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) last Wednesday took cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Cox and Kings loan fraud case and issued process against 13 accused in the case including the travel group’s promoter Ajit Peter Kerkar, its Chief Financial Officer Anil Khandelwal, internal auditor Naresh Jain and Yes bank founder Rana Kapoor.
One of the accused Sagar Deshpande, who was a senior accountant with the travel group was reported dead and hence the case against him stood abated, Additional Sessions Judge Abhijeet A. Nandgaonkar said in his order.
The court stated, “After going through the submissions and written complaints it appears from the facts that materials constitute the commission of scheduled offences by the accused...hence I am of the opinion that this material is sufficient to proceed against all the accused persons.”
According to the agency’s case, the travel group had availed loans to the tune of Rs.3642 crores from Yes Bank using manipulated finance statements and balance sheets and thereafter diverted the loan amount and siphoned it. The sanctioning of the loans was driven by Yes Bank founder and then MD and CEO Rana Kapoor by defying norms. Kapoor is said to have directed bank officials to not make efforts to recover the loans that became outstanding. He is in prison in another multi-crore fraud case where he is an accused along with promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL).
