In 2004, the bank found out that the property could not be mortgaged and that the documents were forged. (Representational Image)A special court on Friday sentenced six men, including a branch head of a public sector bank, to life imprisonment for allegedly committing fraud by taking a loan of Rs 1.5 crore on false documents from the bank.
While Manoharlal Ahuja, Amit Ahuja, Mahesh Bohra, Sandesh Nage, Shantilal Chauhan and Bhagwan Das Joshi were sentenced to life imprisonment, another accused Yunus Memon was handed a three-year jail term. While the six accused were fined Rs 1.53 crore each, Memon was asked to pay a fine of over Rs 4 lakh.
The loan was disbursed to father-son duo Manoharlal and Amit by Bank of India’s Mandvi branch between 2000 and 2003 for business purposes and daily running of their partnership firm, Swift Service Lining. The two men, who also have other similar cases registered against them, had also taken Letters of Credit worth Rs 1 crore from the bank, against the firm’s stocks and booked debts.
According to the prosecution led by J K Sharma and Rakesh Bhatnagar, the Ahujas submitted documents pertaining to balance sheets and income tax as well as the titled deed of an open plot located in Versova valued at Rs 3 crore at the time of applying for the loan. The prosecution alleged that the open plot did not exist and a forged title deed was submitted as collateral.
It added that Bohra, a chartered accountant by profession, gave a false certificate stating that the firm is in a good financial condition by forging its balance sheets. He also prepared false documents for the non-existing open plot. Bohra also received the proceeds and opened an account in the name of shell companies maintained in various public sector banks.
The prosecution also submitted that Nage and Chauhan forged the title deed of the plot by showing a purchaser and a borrower. Joshi, the assistant general manager and branch head of the bank, sanctioned the loan and allowed the Ahujas to encash the payment without monitoring the account or verifying the antecedents and credentials of borrowers.
Memon was part of a panel of several nationalised banks that provided legal opinion in the form of title deeds of properties offered as collateral. Memon mentioned in his report that he had visited the property and verified it with the registrar’s office.
In 2004, when the firm became a non-performing asset, the bank found out that the property could not be mortgaged and that the documents were forged. The Ahujas had also claimed that the stocks and book debts had been destroyed in a fire in their godown. In 2014, while the accused made a one-time settlement with the bank, the criminal case against them under IPC sections continued to be probed.
