Amagistrate court in Mumbai has rejected an application filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seeking closure in a fraud case registered by the Central Bank of India against Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mohit Khamboj.
Read More: ID runs on IT, and lots of engineering
The closure report was filed before the third magistrate court at Esplanade stating that no sufficient evidence was found during the investigation of the criminal conspiracy and cheating case. The Magistrate has now directed the agency to investigate the case under sections of forgery.
The case was investigated by the CBI based on an FIR registered by PK Jagan, Deputy General Manager of the Central Bank of India located at Nariman Point in Mumbai, against a company called Tenet Exim Private Limited and its directors or guarantors (including Kamboj), corporate guarantors and chartered accountants on the allegations of cheating the bank.
The FIR had alleged that the accused dishonestly diverted the funds and caused the wrongful loss to the bank to the tune of Rs 103.81 crore. The bank at that time had claimed that a Forensic Audit Report done in 2018 showed the dishonest and fraudulent acts and omissions of the accused.
The CBI, however, found no fraudulent transactions and Tenet already had a No Objection Certificate from the bank after a One Time Settlement (OTS), and thus they concluded that there was no fraud done.
CBI also pointed out that another bank, SBI, had not declared Tenet’s account as “fraudulent” on the “same set of circumstances.”
The bank had informed the court that after the registration of the FIR, the company officials had approached them and the bank got Rs 13.40 as a full and final settlement from them. The bank also said that it had no objection if the closure report filed by the CBI was considered by the court on merit.
Magistrate JC Yadav, however, said, “If the reply of the bank is seen, it cannot be said that the informant (Bank) gave blanket ‘no objection’ to accepting the closure report.”
The court saw that given the OTS, the bank had withdrawn the civil cases as settled before the Debt Recovery Tribunal and suspended all the actions under the Securitisation Act only without affecting the criminal proceedings. The bank during the hearing had at first also filed an adjournment application in which they had stated that they would be challenging the closure report.
The Magistrate thus concluded that “it can be held that the bank’s reply is nothing but the protest petition filed by the informant Bank to the closure report of the case.”
The court looked through the statements of auditors and said that “the investigating officer has not verified financial transactions as were intended to be verified by the Financial Auditors.
Apart from this, the court took serious note of Kamboj’s role and his financial growth when his company was declared a Non-Performing Asset by the bank.
“Kamboj resigned from the Board of Directors, without informing the Consortium Bank when, even though he stood as a guarantor, his net worth increased drastically when cash generation from the accused company was marginal. He changed shareholding of the company,” said Magistrate Yadav.
The magistrate added that OTS and payment of dues accordingly by the accused was no ground to close the case. The criminal act of the accused was required to be dealt with, as public money was misused.
The parties had also informed the court that in another case against the accused, the Special CBI court had on January 16 this year accepted the closure report by the probe agency after the informant bank had given a no-objection to accepting the report. However, the Magistrate said that it had no bearing on this case.
