FIR against Siddhi Vinayak Logistics for loan fraud | Popgen Tech

New Delhi, December 24 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has lodged an FIR against Siddhi Vinayak Logistics Limited (SVLL) for allegedly committing a bank loan fraud of Rs 87.46 crore.

A senior CBI official said the probe agency received a complaint in March 2021 from Uma Shankar Sinha, Assistant General Manager (AGM), Punjab National Bank (PNB) Zonal SASTRA Centre, Mumbai alleging that the accused committed fraud of bank loans.

Sinha said that between 2013 and 2017, Roop Chand, the director of SVLL, sought a term loan of Rs 100 crore to buy 335 vehicles. The bank sanctioned the loan for the purchase of 335 vehicles, however, the company provided a list of only 240 vehicles.

Since the bank suspected that the borrower did not buy the remaining 95 vehicles and diverted the funds, it appointed a chartered accountant to verify the genuineness of the transactions.

On an internal investigation, the bank found that out of 240 vehicles extended as primary security, only 221 were mortgaged to PNB. One vehicle was mortgaged to State Bank of India (SBI) and in respect of 10 vehicles, there was no payment from any bank. Details of the remaining eight vehicles could not be verified due to non-payment of road taxes.

It was also revealed that some of the vehicles mortgaged to PNB were actually financed by Andhra Bank and SBI, meaning that SVLL had made use of multiple financings for the same set of vehicles.

“SVLL dishonestly and fraudulently disposed of the mortgaged asset with the intention of defrauding the bank. The RTO registration of 95 vehicles were not submitted by the company. Either the borrower did not buy 95 vehicles or they were not registered with appropriate RTO. The accused have caused wrongful loss of Rs 87.46 crores and made wrongful gain,” PNB alleged in the complaint.

The CBI said that after receiving the complaint it filed a case under relevant sections of the IPC.