The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked 15 former and serving senior IDBI Bank officials and 24 others, including Aircel founder C. Sivasankaran, 11 companies and their directors for allegedly cheating the bank to the tune of ₹600 crore.
After registering the FIR on a reference from the Central Vigilance Commission, the agency conducted searches on the premises of the accused at 50 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Faridabad, Gandhinagar, Bengaluru, Belgaum, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Pune.
The CBI has alleged that the then senior bank officials and others committed fraud through loan accounts of Axcel Sunshine Limited, which has its office in British Virgin Islands, and the Finland-based Win Wind Oy.
Among the accused top bankers are M.S. Raghavan, the then CMD; Kishore Kharat, then CMD (currently CMD and CEO of Indian Bank); former deputy managing director (DMD) B.K. Batra; and then DMD M.O. Rego, who is now MD and CEO of Syndicate Bank, said the agency.
“Mr. Sivasankaran, a citizen of Seychelles, is not in India right now. He, being the chairman of Siva Group of companies, is also an accused in this case,” said a CBI official.
In October 2010, the bank sanctioned ₹322 crore in loans to Win Wind Oy, which later applied for bankruptcy in Finland in October 2013. The amount was declared a non-performing asset, said the CBI. In February 2014, the bank sanctioned another loan of ₹523 crore to Axcel Sunshine, an associate of the Siva Group.
“The funds were used to repay loans of other group companies, including Win Wind Oy,” said the official.
Seychelles-based Siva Investments and Holdings Limited is an entity of the Siva Group and Siva Investments is a holding company of Win Wind Oy, the CBI said.
According to the agency, then IDBI independent directors P.S. Shenoy, S. Ravi and Ninad Karpe; executive directors Vinay Kumar and B. Rabindra Nath; and G.M. Yadwadkar, the then executive director and current DMD, have also been arraigned along with Subroto Gupta, the then chief general manager and now an executive director, and others.
