A special court for CBI cases on Friday sentenced a former manager of Indian Bank, Ethiraj Salai branch, and the chief promoter of a private firm to five years rigorous imprisonment after holding them guilty of cheating and defrauding the bank to the tune of ₹3.89 crore nearly two decades ago.
The prosecution case was that R.H. Wheeler, the then bank manager, Fidely Industries Ltd managing director Ashok Muthanna, director V.G.K. Moorthy, and finance adviser Ram Kumar, entered into a criminal conspiracy during 1998-1999 to commit criminal misconduct and cheat the bank in the matter of sanction and release of temporary overdraft in the current account of the company. By abusing the official position of a public servant, Wheeler released a letter of credit, packing credit facilities beyond the sanctioned limit, unauthorisedly allowed huge temporary overdraft, obtained illegal gratification and thereby facilitated other accused to misappropriate the funds.
The CBI charged that the accused obtained wrongful gain of ₹3.89 crore.
The special judge for CBI cases S. Jawahar sentenced Wheeler and Ashok Muthanna to five years rigorous imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of ₹15 lakh and ₹20 lakh.
The court also sentenced Moorthy and Ramkumar to three years imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of ₹4 lakh each on them.
