The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday transferred the Lakshmi Vilas Bank loan fraud case to the Central Bureau of Investigation and directed the investigating agency to file a status report on December 5.
The Single Bench of Justice S.S. Sundar directed the police to transfer the complaints and materials received by them to the Central Investigating Agency.
The court observed that it was inclined to transfer the case from the City Crime Branch to the CBI after the police had said that they could not proceed as no cognizable offence was made out from the complaints. The complaints were made in September 2017.
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The petitioner, M.Rengarjan, Assistant Vice-President, Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Regional Office-Madurai, said a huge sum of about ₹81 crore was swindled from the bank on the guise of issuing loans. The loans were obtained through fabricated documents given to the bank by the accused. The bank was made to believe that the transactions were genuine, said the petitioner.
At least 31 persons, of which 27 from Madurai and four gtom Virudhunagar, had approached the bank for availing credit.
They had borrowed ₹ 71.62 crore and ₹ 10.05 crore respectively and failed to repay the loan. The bank had sanctioned the loan against storage receipt and test certificates provided by the parties as collaterals.
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The agricultural stock was kept at the warehouse of the private firm with whom the bank had entered into an agreement for warehouse management services. However it was later found out that the stock was not entirely pulses, but a considerable amount of paddy husk.
The bank had accused the firm of conspiring with the parties to commit the fraud and swindle the money. On the other hand, the private firm accused the bank of conspiring with the private parties and induced the company into believing that it was stocking pulses.