CBI raids premises of Crompton Greaves, Gautam Thapar in Rs 2,435 cr bank fraud case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday carried out searches at several locations in Delhi, Haryana's Gurugram and Maharashtra's Mumbai on the premises linked to Crompton Greaves, industrialist Gautam Thapar, the then CMD of the company and several others for fraud worth Rs 2,435 crore to State Bank of India and other consortium member banks.
A CBI official spokesperson here said that the agency has registered a case against Crompton Greaves Power and Industrial Solution Ltd, Thapar, who was then CMD, K N Neelkanth, the then CEO and MD, Madhav Acharya, the then ED and CFO, B Hariharan, the then Director, Omkar Goswami, the then non-executive director, Venkatesh Rammoorthy, the then CFO and unknown public servants and unknown others for causing loss to the SBI led consortium banks worth Rs 2,435 crore. The case was registered on the basis of the complaint filed by the SBI.

In the complaint it was alleged that people named in the complaint had cheated the SBI and other consortium member banks including Bank of Maharashtra, Axis bank, Yes Bank, Corporation Bank, Barclays Bank, IndusInd Bank etc by way of diversion of bank funds, sham transactions with related parties, borrowing funds from the Bank by misrepresentation, falsifying or fabricating books of accounts, entries, vouchers and financial statements, furnishing false, incorrect or misleading information, siphoning off funds including various loan proceeds.

It said that the allegations were based on a forensic audit report. A CBI official said that the agency carried out searches at the office premises of Crompton Greaves in Mumbai, premises of Thapar and others in Delhi and Gurugram.

This is the third case against Thapar by the CBI in the last 15 months. On June 9, the CBI had earlier filed a case against Thapar of Avantha Realty and Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd among several others for allegedly cheating Yes Bank to the tune of Rs 466 crore.

The CBI also carried out searches at 14 locations including at Delhi NCR, Lucknow, Secunderabad and Kolkata which has led to the recovery of incriminating documents and digital evidence. Thapar is also being probed in another case related to diversion of public money in Yes Bank, allegedly involving the bank's former chief Rana Kapoor.-IANS