AMN / NEW DELHI
Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a case against Simbhaoli Sugars’ chairman Gurmit Singh Mann and others in connection with a 109 crore rupees loan default case. The case has been registered against Mann, CEO GSC Rao, CFO Sanjay Tapriya, executive director Gursimran Kaur Mann and other company officials.
Some more bank officials have also been booked in connection with the fraud involving the sugars mill and the Oriental Bank of Commerce for money laundering. The ED official said, the agency carried out searches yesterday at Hapur and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.
The ED officials said they have recovered some incriminating documents during the searches.
The CBI, earlier on February 22, had booked Gurpal Singh, son-in-law of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and 12 others including Mann, Rao, Tapriya, Gursimran Kaur Mann and other company officials along with some bank officials in connection with the same bank fraud.
According to the CBI officials, the bank sanctioned a loan amounting to Rs. 148.60 crore in 2011 to the private company for financing individual, Joint Liability Groups, Self-Help Groups under the tie-up arrangement of the RBI Scheme to 5,762 sugarcane farmers supplying produce to said private company during the period from January 25 to March 13, 2012.
It has been alleged that the company had diverted funds for personal use. The account turned Non Performing Asset (NPA) on March 31, 2015 and was later declared as alleged fraud by the bank to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 13, 2015 for an amount of Rs. 97.85 crore.
It was further alleged that in addition to the existing NPA as on March 31, 2015, the bank, under multiple banking arrangements, had sanctioned another corporate loan of Rs. 110 crore to the sugar company on January 28, 2015, to pay its outstanding loan of Rs. 97.85 crore, and adjusted the total liability of 112.9 crore of said private company on June 30, 2016 by way of deposit of this new corporate loan.
The corporate loan, too turned into an NPA on November 29, 2016, thus resulting in its first outstanding loan of Rs. 97.85 crore and the corporate loan of Rs. 109.08 crore.