Ravi, the chairman of IDBI Bank's Audit Committee, is also on the boards several companies and organisations.
As the CBI intensifies its investigation into the Rs 600-crore loan fraud case at IDBI Bank in which 15 serving and retired officials of the bank have been booked, fresh details have emerged. The case registered on Thursday against independent directors of IDBI Bank also includes S Ravi, the chairman of BSE.
Ravi, the chairman of IDBI Bank's Audit Committee, is also on the boards of several companies and organisations. He is an associate member of Association of Certified Fraud Examiners; a member of the takeover panel of Sebi. He is also a member on the boards of SBI-SG Global Securities Services, SMERA Ratings, STCI Finance, Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Tourism Finance Corporation of India and UTI Trustee Company, among others.
BSE declined to comment on the report.
The CBI has also named Aptech non-executive director Ninad Karpe in the case.
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This is the second case in which the CBI has pinned the responsibility of bad loan on independent directors. Earlier, the agency had registered a case against Anil Razdan and two independent directors in Era Infrastructure Engineering loan default case.
Officials from SEBI and Ministry of Corporate Affairs say the post of independent director is merely a “rubber stamp”, despite having clearly defined roles. There is hardly any compliance with the rules, another source said. “Independent directors should be able to raise concerns over any wrongdoing in the system,” the source said.
“After the action on independent directors, professionals will be cautious about taking up the board seat as an independent director,” an independent director on the board of a bank told Moneycontrol
The CBI on Thursday registered case against former Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran's companies — British Virgin Islands-based M/s Axcel Sunshine Limited and Finland-based Win Wind Oy — for allegedly defaulting on loans worth Rs 600 crore taken from IDBI Bank.
The agency conducted searches at 50 places located across 10 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Belgaum, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Pune. The search operation included raids in the residences of MS Raghvan (former CMD, IDBI Bank), BK Batra (former DMD of IDBI Bank) and Mervin O Rego (former DMD of IDBI Bank and presently serving as CMD and CEO of Syndicate Bank). As a result, 15 former and serving officers of the bank have been booked.
Later in the day, IDBI Bank issued a statement saying that they had given a loan to Axcel Sunshine Ltd in February 2014, which became a non performing asset in December 2015. The bank said the loan has been fully provided for and it had initiated steps to recover the dues in August 2016.
According to information received earlier, it was reported that IDBI Bank had sanctioned the loan in October 2016.