ACB books senior bank officials for loan fraud

VIJAYAWADA: The

Anti-Corruption Bureau

(

ACB

) booked three

Syndicate Bank officials

in

Nellore

on Saturday for defrauding the bank to the tune of Rs 8.5 crore. The accused have been identified as Ch Chandra Mouleswara Rao (AGM), retired central manager C Satyanarayana and branch head Ch Lakshmi Murthy.


Vijayawada ACB officials had received a complaint from Dasari Balakishan, deputy general manager of Syndicate Bank in Nellore, seeking action against a few bank officials and private persons for misappropriating bank funds. In the complaint, he accused the three bank officials of sanctioning a big loan without taking approval from the head office.

The accused bank officials first sanctioned a loan Rs 2.75 crore to P Visweswara Rao and P Mallikarjuna Rao, owners of Fortune Motors in Nellore. The loan amount was later enhanced to Rs 8.5 crore in 2015 which, the complainant noted, was much higher compared than the value of the property papers deposited as security, and in which valuator S Kameswara Rao and legal advisor MV Vijaya Kumari assisted the accused borrowers.

As the loans became non-performing assets for a long period, bank officials conducted an enquiry in 2016 and following due verification, it was found that the title deed and related documents were fake. A case under relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act was registered in this regard.

ACB also booked six other officials — chief manager C Gopal, additional general manager Ch Kotilingam, branch manager D Edukondalu, senior manager P K Biswal, assistant manager K Ramesh Babu and assistant manager (retd) PSR Sai Prasad for indirectly helping Avadhanam Satya Sai, proprietor of Venkata Sainath Rubber Industries, to obtain loans without collecting KYC details. Those loans too have fallen under the NPA category.

This is a first major case of criminal misconduct undertaken by ACB since Shankha Brata Bagchi took charge as its director general.