The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against a private company based in Mumbai and others including its directors and others on a complaint from Bank of Baroda on the allegations of bank fraud of Rs. 4957.31 crore to the consortium of 17 banks.
The accused named in the FIR have been identified as M/s Pratibha Industries Limited, Mumbai; Ajit Bhagwan Kulkarni, Ravi Kulkarni, Sunanda Datta Kulkarni, Sharad Prabhakar Deshpande, alll are director and guarantors in the company. The account of a said private company was classified as NPA (non-performing asset) on December 31, 2017. Subsequently, the accounts were also declared as fraud by the members of the consortium banks.
The company was into the development of infrastructure projects, which included designing, engineering and execution or construction of complex, integrated water transmission, distribution projects, water treatment plants, mass housing projects, precast design & construction, road construction and urban infrastructure etc.
It was further alleged that the accused had diverted a huge amount of money from the borrower company to its related parties and subsidiaries and subsequently, these advances were written off by the company.
It was also alleged that the company had entered into fictitious sales and purchase transactions in order to inflate its turnover. Further, to avail credit facilities from the lender banks, the work-in-progress was allegedly inflated and a huge amount of Vender Liability was directly adjusted against Customer Account without having any supporting document for the same.
Searches were conducted today at four locations including Mumbai and Thane, which led to the recovery of several incriminating documents and articles.
Further investigation is underway.