Jain put spoke in naming Rs 100 cr bad loans as NPAs

CBI says Rs 50 lakh was taken as bribe

Suspended Chairman and Managing Director of Syndicate Bank S K Jain, arrested by CBI on graft charges, had allegedly prevented loans of over Rs 100 crore on Bhushan Steel and Prakash Industries from being declared as non-performing assets, agency sources said on Monday.

CBI has also alleged that Jain used to negotiate directly with the companies on the bribe amount and once the deal was struck, he used hawala channel to receive the money, the sources said.

They alleged that once the bribe amount was agreed upon, the company used to pay hawala operator who forwarded the payment to other businessmen who finally made the payment to brother-in laws of Jain in Mumbai who too have been arrested.

CBI sources said Jain has allegedly taken Rs 50 lakh as bribe from Bhushan Steel for not declaring loans of nearly Rs 100 crore as non-performing assets. The sources said a similar deal was struck with Prakash Industries also but the alleged bribe is still being traced.

They said the bad loans for Prakash Industries allegedly were about 20 million US Dollars (approximately Rs 120 crore). The sources said the agency has been tracking the conversations of Jain for nearly six months and acted when it got clear indication of alleged bribe exchanging hands.
They said CBI is still looking for two alleged middlemen--realtor Purushotam Totlani and Neeraj Singal, Vice-president and Managing Director of Bushan Stee.

No reaction was available from Bhushan Steel and Prakash Industries on the issue. Jain, 54, was appointed CMD of state-owned Syndicate Bank in July last year for a period of five years. He was one of the youngest CMDs of a public sector bank and was due to retire in 2020.