In a joint operation, the CBI and the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad have arrested three promoters of Vadodara-based Diamond Power Infrastructure Ltd (DPIL) in connection with Rs 2,654 crore bank fraud. The three promoters - S N Bhatnagar and his sons Amit and Sumit - were held from a hotel in Udaipur on Tuesday night.
Explaining the details, a senior ATS official said: "The CBI had sought our help in nabbing the Bhatnagar trio. Based on a tip-off that they were hiding in a hotel, a joint team of the Gujarat ATS and the CBI conducted a raid in Udaipur in Rajasthan last night and held them." The CBI had filed a complaint against the promoters two weeks ago.
According to the CBI, the DPIL had fraudulently availed credit facilities from a consortium of 11 banks (both public and private) from 2008, leading to outstanding debt of Rs 2,654.40 crore as of June 29, 2016. The loan was declared a non-performing asset in 2016-17. DPIL allegedly submitted false stock statements to the lead bank by treating 'receivables more than 180 days' (non-current assets) as 'less than 180 days' (current assets) to get more drawing power in the cash credit accounts.
The company and its directors managed to get the term loans and credit facilities, in spite of the fact that they were named in the Reserve Bank of India's defaulters list and ECGC (Export Credit Guarantee Corporation) caution list at the time of the initial sanction of credit limits by the consortium.
The central investigating agency alleged that the DPIL extensively utilised cash credit limits for obtaining a large number of letters of credit, and many of them could not be honoured by the company and were thus 'forced charged' on the credit limit. Earlier this month, the central investigating agency carried out searches at the official and residential premises of the DPIL and its directors in Vadodara in Gujarat.
The Income Tax Department is also probing the DPIL loan fraud case. Recently, the tax sleuths raided the premises of Vadodara-based firm and found that its promoters obtained loans by showing a huge turnover through bogus intra-group transactions of Rs 550 crore.
While going through the accounts of DPIL and other companies floated by its promoters, I-T officials discovered fraudulent transactions, where one company 'sold' products to another company in the same group.
"As of now, we have unearthed such fraudulent transactions worth Rs 550 crore while going through 2017-18 accounts alone. We are yet to check records of previous years. The promoters showed a high turnover through bogus transactions between their own companies," the I-T official said.
The I-T Department initiated the action following raids by the CBI and the ED on the company offices and the promoters' residences.
(With inputs from PTI)