ABG Shipyard Fraud: No Delay In Filing Of Case, Says SBI
The CBI has so far registered an FIR against 8 people in the ABG Shipyard scam case of about Rs 22,842 crore. This company has defrauded a group of 28 banks. State Bank of India has now spoken on the biggest scam in banking history. SBI said that the loan was given under the consortium arrangement of more than 2 dozen lenders led by ICICI Bank. The account became NPA in November 2013 due to poor performance. Many efforts were made to get the company running again but without success.
CBI has registered a case against ABG Shipyard Limited and its then CMD Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal among others in the country’s biggest bank fraud case. The case was registered in connection with an alleged fraud of over Rs 22,842 crore from a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India, officials said on Saturday.
Apart from Agarwal, the agency has also booked the then executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, directors – Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Vimal Nevetia and another company ABG International Pvt Ltd for alleged offenses such as criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and official misappropriation. filed suit for
He said that these people have been prosecuted under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The bank’s consortium had first filed the complaint on 8 November 2019, on which the CBI had sought some clarifications on 12 March 2020. The consortium of banks filed a fresh complaint in August that year and after more than a year and a half of investigation, the CBI acted on it. The official said that the company was sanctioned loans of Rs 2468.51 crore by SBI as well as 28 banks and financial institutions.
He said the forensic audit revealed that between 2012-17, the accused allegedly colluded and carried out illegal activities, including misappropriation of funds and criminal breach of trust. This is the biggest bank fraud case registered by the CBI.
“Searchs were conducted at 13 places on Saturday in the premises of accused including directors of a private company in Surat, Bharuch, Mumbai, Pune etc., in which suspicious documents were recovered,” the CBI said in a statement.
