The CBI special court on Friday convicted former Assistant General Manager of Dena Bank Ramesh Raghunath Kamath and a Hyderabad-based entrepreneur couple for cheating the bank by availing business loans worth over ₹2 crore and diverting the funds for other purposes.
The special court judge H.A. Mohan sentenced Kamath to two years’ simple imprisonment (SI) and a fine of ₹1 lakh, while N. Sudhakar Rao was sentenced with three years’ SI and a fine of ₹6 lakh, and his wife Jyotsna Kulkarni, both partners of Vaishnavi Sales Corporation, was sentenced with one year SI and a fine of ₹75,000.
The investigation revealed that the letter of credit for ₹4.49 crore submitted by Rao was forged, and not issued by UCO Bank, Burdwan Branch in West Bengal. Kamath had discounted the letter of credit without verification and credited the amount into the account of Vaishnavi Sales Corporation.
The CBI in its chargesheet alleged that in 2013, when Raghunath Kamath was working as AGM in Dena Bank, K.G. Road Branch, Bengaluru, had facilitated the Vaishnavi Sales Corporation to avail a credit facility of ₹2 crore for doing business. But the partners of a company by Sudhakar and Jyotsna Kulkarni diverted the funds for various other purposes without doing any business.
Subsequently, the borrowers had failed to repay the due amount and therefore the company account became a Non Performing Assets (NPA) and the bank suffered financial loss to the tune of ₹7 crore. Hence, the CBI filed a chargesheet against the accused for the offences of cheating and forgery and under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
B.R. Shivananda Perla, Senior Public Prosecutor, CBI, conducted the trial on behalf of prosecution to ensure conviction of the accused.
