The Special Court for CBI cases in Coimbatore on Wednesday convicted former senior branch manager of a Vijaya Bank branch in Tiruppur district and three others in a 2007 bank fraud case which caused the bank loss to the tune of ₹51 lakh.
Additional District Judge for CBI cases S. Nagarajan sentenced V.R. Radhakrishnan, former senior branch manager of the bank, R. Uma Maheswari, former forex officer of the bank, P. Sampath Kumar, a former executive of Sigma Garments, a knitted garment exports company in Tiruppur, and a fourth person named Syed Frouk, to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment, said a release.
As per the release, the four persons entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat Vijaya Bank and in pursuance, the two bank officials purchased three forged export bills referred by Sampath Kumar and credited the amounts in the account of Sigma Garments.
The bank officials also sanctioned packing credit limits to several firms in violation of banking norms and unauthorisedly utilised these amounts to settle the outstanding of Sigma Garments and other accounts and caused loss to the bank to the tune of ₹51,05,049, the release said. The Anti-Corruption Branch of CBI, Chennai, investigated the case.
The court slapped a fine of ₹2,10,000 each on Radhakrishnan and Uma Maheswari, ₹2,50,000 on Sampath Kumar and ₹50,000 on Syed Frouk.
Stolen car traced to Kanyakumari
The Madukkarai police on Wednesday recovered a car belonging to a Kerala native which a four-member group took away from him on January 11. The police traced the car to Kanyakumari district.
The police said that four unknown men waylaid the car of K. Mohammad Musthafa (34), a native of Mannarkad in Palakkad district, near Madukkarai when he was travelling from Coimbatore to his native place along with a friend named Sharjah Hussain around 9 p.m. on January 11.
Musthafa complained to the Madukkarai police that the men took away the car and a box containing money which he was taking to a person named Nassar of Mannarkad.
The police investigated the complaint and found the car abandoned near Nithiravilai in Kanyakumari district. The police are continuing their investigation.