The case against the company and its directors involves causing alleged loss of ₹787.25 Crore to Punjab National Bank and other consortium of banks
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday registered a criminal offence case against the Delhi based Moser Baer Solar Ltd and its directors including Dipak Puri and Ratul Puri, said CBI spokesperson in a statement.
This comes after the investigative agency conducted searches in the premises of the company and its directors on Friday morning. The searches were conducted at seven locations in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Annupur in Madhya Pradesh.
The case against the company and its directors involves causing alleged loss of Rs. 787.25 Crore to Punjab National Bank and other consortium of banks.
"It is clear that the accused in connivance with each other or any other person have committed various criminal offences, thereby caused wrongful gain to themselves and wrongful loss to the lenders to the tune of ₹787.25 crore," said CBI in the FIR.
Losses have been caused to Punjab National Bank led consortium comprising State Bank of India (SBI), Exim Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Central Bank of India, Union Bank of India, and Bank of Baroda.
The said case of fraud is based on a forensic audit conducted by Haribhakti and Co which pointed to instances of siphoning off funds, unverified sales transactions which led to losses to the public sector lenders.
In terms of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines post the restructuring in 2013, the company was required to deposit any proceeds from the sale of assets only with the consortium but the Moser Baer maintained accounts with other banks and sale proceeds were deposited there. This indicated their fraudulent intention of siphoning-off funds, said CBI in the FIR quoting the forensic audit.
A sum of ₹696 crore which should have ideally been used to repay the lenders under the restructuring scheme was used to invest in a related company Helios Photovoltaic Ltd, which was booking losses since 2012.
The auditor also verified 71 sale transactions in Helios and 63 of them did not have any supporting documents, it added.
This is a second economic criminal case registered against Ratul Puri. He is also a key accused in the money laundering probe linked to the AgustaWestland VVIP choppers purchase scam, was arrested in August last year and released on bail in December.
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