CBI books BSP MLA Vinay Shankar Tiwari, wife for over Rs 750 crore bank fraud

NEW DELHI: The CBI has booked BSP MLA Vinay Shankar Tiwari and his wife Rita Tiwari in a case of alleged fraud of Rs 754.24 crore in a Bank of India-led consortium, officials said Monday.

The team booked Tiwari, who is MLA from Chillupar (Gorakhpur) in Uttar Pradesh, his wife Rita, a company named Gangotri Enterprises and its Director Ajit Pandey, they said.

They carried out searches in Lucknow and Noida on Monday including the Lucknow office of Gangotri Enterprises and Tiwari's residence, the officials said.

Tiwari is the son of former minister and strongman from Gorakhpur Hari Shankar Tiwari.

The agency also searched the residence of Pandey and the office of another company Royal Empire Marketing Ltd in Noida, they said.

"It was alleged that the private company (Gangotri Enterprises) having its corporate office at Mahanagar, Lucknow was engaged in the construction of road, bridges and flyovers etc. and availed credit facilities from a consortium of banks led by Bank of India from time to time," CBI Spokesperson RK Gaur said.

"It was also alleged that the company was supposed to route all its transactions through Trust & Retention Account and the company was not doing the same. It was further alleged that there were irregularities in the financial statements of the company," he said.