Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
The CBI special court on Friday convicted former Assistant General Manager of Dena Bank Ramesh Raghunath Kamath and Hyderabad-based Entrepreneurial couple for cheating the bank by availing business loan worth over two crores and diverting the funds to other purpose .
The Special court judge H A Mohan sentenced Kamath to two years’ simple imprisonment (SI) and a fine of Rs. 1 lakh,while N Sudhakar Rao was sentenced with three years’ SI and a fine of Rs.6 lakh,and his wife Jyotsna Kulkarni,both partners of Vaishnavi Sales Corporation, was sentenced with one year simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs.75,000.
The investigation revealed that the letter of credit for Rs.4.49 crore,submitted by Rao,was forged,and not issued by UCO Bank,Burdwan Branch in West Bengal.
Kamath had discounted the letter of credit without verification and credited the amount into the account of Vaishnavi Sales Corporation.
The CBI in its charge sheet alleged that during the year 2013, when Raghunath Kamath was working as AGM in Dena Bank,KG Road Branch, Bangalore had facilitated the Vaishnavi Sales Corporation to avail credit facility of Rs.2 Crores for doing business.
But the partners of company Sudhakar and Jyotsna Kulkarni have diverted the funds for various other purposes without doing any business.
Further Sudhakar had submitted some forged letter of credit for Rs.4.49 crore in the name of their company purportedly issued by UCO Bank,Burdhwan Branch, West Bengal.
Probe revealed that the LC issued by UCO Bank was fake and submitted to Kamath which he discounted the LC without verifying its genuineness and credited the amount into the account of company.
Later it was revealed from the UCO Bank officers that the said LCs were forged and manipulated by Sudhakar by forging the signatures of Managers of UCO Bank, Burdhwan Branch.
Subsequently the borrowers have failed to repay the due amount and therefore companies account became Non Performing Assets (NPA) and the bank suffered financial loss to the tune of seven crores .
Hence CBI filed charge sheet against the accused persons for the offences punishable under cheating , forgery and and also under Prevention of Corruption Act.
B.R. Shivananda Perla,Senior Public Prosecutor,CBI has conducted the trial on behalf of prosecution to ensure conviction of the accused .
