Rs 6.2 crore banking fraud in Bangalore

 
Officials of the CBI told Deccan Herald that the loan was allegedly doled out by T V Reddy, the then chief manager of the State Bank of Mysore, to a Bangalore-based realty firm—ASTRA Developers—during 2003-06.

Reddy along with the owners of the firm, Manju Nath and C Cheluvain, have been charged by the special judge, Bangalore, with cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery for the purpose of cheating and knowingly using fake documents as genuine, according to the CBI.

Reddy, working at the specialised personal banking branch, Gandhinagar, Bangalore, allegedly “conspired” with Manju Nath and Cheuvain—both formerly bill collectors in Hurulichikkanahalli and the erstwhile Abbigere grama panchayaths—to grant loans in the names of several “non-existing employees” as also those employed with “the customers of the realty firm.”

After receiving a complaint from the bank itself, the CBI launched a detailed investigations in Bangalore and round to find out the real beneficiaries of the sanctioned loan.

The charge sheet filed in a Bangalore court says that the then chief manager conspired with the partners of the Bangalore-based firm during the period from August 2003 to January 2006 and sanctioned 88 housing loans amounting to Rs. 6.20 crores “on agricultural, industrial and non-convertible residential land.

“These loans were sanctioned on the basis of false and inflated salary slips, Form 16 and Salary Certificates, in the names of several existing and non-existing employees of ADE, HAL, BEML, NOVA Technologies and BSNL, who were the customers of the five projects of Bangalore-based private firm,” said the CBI chargesheet.

The agency also alleged that Reddy resorted to cheque purchase transactions in favour of private firm and its partners, beyond the sanctioned limits, his discretion and  authority.

A number of loan-related frauds in Bangalore have been investigated by the CBI in the recent past and officials chargesheeted for issuing housing loans on fake salary slips in the names of non-existent employees. In a similar case, the CBI had recently charged a senior Canara Bank official in the city who is understood to have been “punished” after departmental inquiry but  is still continues to be in the payroll of the bank, according to sources. Before launching the ASTRA firm in Bangalore, the duo were bill collectors in their respective “gram panchayats,” they said.