The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) this week arrested Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar in connection with the Rs 3,000 loan scam by Videocon Group. There were also several other individuals charged in the case under the relevant sections of the IPC relating to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Anti-Corruption Act.
Here we take a look at the top 10 bank fraud cases that have hit India in the last 10 years.
Vijay Mallya scam case
The King of Good Times, as Mallya has been dubbed, is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to bank fraud. The businessman is now broke. Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 10,000 crore to several banks, with SBI, PNB and IDBI all lending it money. Mallya fled India in early 2016. Of the original Rs 6,900 crore loan to Kingfisher, SBI Mallya had borrowed Rs 1,600 crore.
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Punjab National Bank was Rs 800 crores, IDBI was Rs 650 crores and Bank of Baroda was Rs 550 crores. The banks had appealed to a special Money Laundering Prevention Court (PMLA), which allowed them to sell certain Mallya properties and securities in order to recover bad loans. The Indian government is trying to get Mallya extradited from Britain to India to face criminal charges.
Punjab National Bank scam
The Punjab National Bank scam was touted as the largest in India at Rs 11,400 crore and the main suspects were jewelers Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Nishant Modi, Ami Modi and others including some PNB employees. The scam involved “letters of commitment” fraudulently issued by a junior official at the bank to obtain short-term loans from overseas bank branches to pay vendors, and the transactions were never registered with the bank, with the officials also investigating the scam didn’t notice.
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A CBI investigation uncovered the fraud in which the defendant defrauded the overseas branches of 30 Indian banks. Modi, Choksi fled India a few days before the scam was made public. Modi, who was in prison in London, recently appealed against his extradition, which was rejected.
Winsome Diamonds Bank Fraud
Businessman Jatin Mehta’s Winsome Diamonds fraudulently purchased undertakings from Indian banks and the fraud was first exposed in 2014. Mehta and his wife Sonia and their sons Vipul and SurajIt have fled India leaving behind a loan default of almost Rs 7,000 crore. Over 10 cases have been filed against Mehta.
ABG shipyard fraud case
The CBI accused ABG Shipyard Limited, its former chairman and chief executive Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, Santhanam Muthaswamy, Ashwini Kumar, Ravi Vimal Nevetia, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and another company, ABG International Pvt Ltd, of embezzling Rs 22,842 crore from SBI and 27 others lenders . The loan account was classified as a distressed asset in July 2016 and fraud was uncovered in 2019.
Kanishk Gold bank scam
Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd has been charged by CBI with allegedly defrauding 14 SBI-run banks out of Rs 824 crore. According to media reports, the owners have been accused of taking out huge loans for businesses and interfering with the rights and interests of the banks, the lawsuit states. ED in Chennai froze land valued at Rs 48 crore from Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd under the PMLA.
SBI has said the security to cover the loss from the fraud is around Rs 156 crore.
Andhra Bank scam
Gujarat-based pharmaceutical company Sterling Biotech Limited has been implicated in the Andhra bank fraud case as 4 directors of the company were identified as defaulters in the Rs 8,100 crore bank fraud. Nitin Sandesara, Chetan Sandesara, Dipti Sandesara and Hiteshkumar Narendrabhai Patel have been named fugitives from the scam. The company has been accused of acquiring over Rs 5,000 crore in loans from a consortium led by Andhra Bank, which has since become distressed assets.
Rotomac Pen scam
Rotomac Global Private Limited of Kanpur, its promoter Vikram Kothari and other directors have been charged by the CBI with alleged £750.54million defrauding of lenders. The company owes a total of Rs 2,919 crore to a consortium of seven banks led by the Bank of India. The bank had provided loans to the company since 2002 and in 2015 the account was classified as a non-performing asset (NPA). Kothari died in early 2022 after an accident at home. He was arrested in connection with the case in 2018 and spent two years in prison, after which he was granted bail on health grounds.
Fraud in the Videocon case
FIR was filed against Chanda Kochhar, former CEO of ICICI Bank, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Venugopal Dhoot, MD of Videocon Group, for alleged irregularities in the bank’s loans to the group in 2012. The case relates to the time when Kochhar was CEO of ICICI and had loaned Rs 3,250 crore to Dhoot’s Videocon Group. A whistleblower who owned shares in both the bank and the group claimed that the loan to Videocon was influenced by Kochhar in exchange for a deal with NuPower Renewables and Supreme Energy, a clean energy company run by Kochhar’s husband.
