Jobaaj Stories
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case against M/s Corporate Power Ltd. and its promoters/directors after bank lenders alleged fraud of Rs 4,037.87 crores.
The company, which is reportedly involved in the manufacture of basic iron and steel, has been accused of defrauding a coterie of 20 banks. A complaint was filed by Union Bank of India, which was the lead lender in the coterie of 20 banks.
The loans were declared as NPA in 2013 by the Union Bank of India after which the other lenders chose to do the same. However, in October 2019, the accounts of the same were declared fraudulent.
"It was further alleged that between the years 2009 and 2013, the said borrower had submitted manipulated project cost statements and diverted bank funds. It was also alleged that trade receivables mainly including transactions to related parties and funds, were diverted to a web of various companies who were dummy accounts; accordingly, the borrower was able to siphon off funds," a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
Pursuant to this, searches were conducted at 16 locations, including Nagpur, Mumbai, Ranchi, Kolkata, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, and Visakhapatnam, which led to the recovery of incriminating evidence.
However, the extent of the fraud is reportedly much greater in this case. The CBI has discovered that this group of lenders is not the first victim of the accused. 13 companies linked to accused directors had taken loans that were converted to NPAs in 2014. The same resulted in outstanding loans of Rs 11,000 crores!
Moreover, in 2017, two promoters were arrested in what was termed a 'large scale scam' and a coal block allocation scam case. A former Union Minister and a Rajya Sabha MP were also reportedly accused in the case!
Among the accused, the following have been named: Manoj Jayaswal, Abhishek Jayaswal, Abhijeet Jayaswal, Rajiv Kumar, Bishal Jaiswal, Munna Kumar Jaiswal, PN Krishnan, Rajeev Goyal, Arun Kumar Shrivastava, SN Gaikwad, Prem Prakash Sharma, and Arun Gupta.
The CBI has stated that the investigation of the fraud is currently underway.
Article by Aman Agarwal.
