Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has launched an investigation against a civil construction firm, M/s Alfara’a Infraprojects Pvt Ltd, for allegedly causing a wrongful loss of Rs 255 crore to Bank of Baroda by diverting funds to other accounts.
A written complaint was received from the bank’s deputy general manager Prahlad Kumar Sinha against the Andheri firm and its directors, besides unknown public servants and others. As per the complaint, the firm’s directors availed credit facilities in the form of fund based and non-fund based limits to the tune of Rs103 crore in 2012.
Further, the account was reviewed and enhanced to Rs360.50 crore in June 2015, and the limits were last reviewed at the same level in March 2018. The loan account of the company was declared as a non-performing asset (NPA) on June 18, 2018 with an outstanding amount of Rs255.74 crore.
As per the preliminary inquiry, the company, though engaged in the primary activity of civil construction work, also engaged in trading activities constituting 69% of the purchases and sales in 2017-18. It also noted discrepancies in the vehicle numbers mentioned in Letter of Credit (LC) documents, with credit facilities being used for purposes other than the purpose mentioned in the sanction advice.
As per the FIR, 10 bank guarantees were invoked and 38 LCs devolved, resulting in the loan account becoming NPA under suspicious circumstances. Preliminary inquiry also revealed that from 2012 to 2018, funds availed from the bank were siphoned by submitting false invoices and fabricated lorry receipts with a criminal intention to cheat the bank.
A case has been registered by the CBI under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using genuine a forged) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant section of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
