ICICI Bank Loan Fraud: Recently, the news of the arrest of former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar by CBI was in headlines. Following that Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot recently was also arrested by the CBI in a bank fraud case.

Despite all the evidence, the CBI registered an FIR in 2019 and started the investigation. It is surprising that the arrest of the accused was done after three years in December 2022. This wavering attitude of CBI raises the question that how many more such cases are there in the country on which CBI and other investigating agencies are adopting similar wavering attitude?

ICICI Bank Loan Fraud:  Arguing for bail for the Kochhars, their lawyers said in the court, “The Kochhars were available from January 2019 till now, then why were they not called for investigation all these years?” According to the lawyer, till July 2022, CBI did not even need him for investigation and now CBI is demanding custodial interrogation. Legal experts call it the lack of working style of CBI. If such a popular case of bank fraud drags on so much due to the laziness of the CBI, then questions will surely arise on the investigating agencies.

What was the reason that the arrest and interrogation on the FIR registered in 2019 took so long? There are cases where the CBI or other investigative agencies have to show promptness, arrests are made overnight and the proceedings also gain momentum. Where there is a desire to ignore the case or there are ‘instructions’ from above to pay lesser attention, economic criminals like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are also given a chance to leave the country and run away.

the connivance of the bank officials is the key

In bank fraud cases, no one can cheat the bank without the connivance of the bank officials. RBI data shows that if the loan amount of the country’s ‘Top 50 willful loan defaulters’ is added, it comes out around Rs 92,570 crore. How has this amount been so much? Were the bank officials sleeping? Generally when a common man takes a small loan from the bank for his new car or new house, all the documents are signed. The bank also demands the documents of his movable and immovable property as a guarantee.

Hefty bribes are paid

But all the rules and regulations are flouted for the famous bank robbers of the country. This happens only because the borrower pays a hefty bribe to the bank officials for taking the loan. When the amount of loan and interest becomes very big and the job of a bank officer is made, then the drama of complaint and investigation starts.

What happens to bank loan fraudsters?

After so much hue and cry over Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, ever since the Government of India became serious on this matter, the process of bringing these two accused back to the country was also speeded up. Our government is also getting some success in these matters. But what is happening to the bank loan fraudsters who are in this country? For example, Frost International Limited has a name in the list of ‘Top 50 willful loan defaulters’ of the country. The amount of their bank fraud is more than 3500 crores. This company is accused of fraud with a group of 14 banks.

Probing agencies help the accused

The directors of this company are Uday Desai, Sujay Desai, Sunil Verma, Anoop Kumar, Baldev Raj Wadhera and others. It is noteworthy that in 2020, Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank had registered FIRs against Uday Desai and 13 others for fraud cases. Not only this, a ‘look out notice’ was also issued by the banks against the directors of this group. But the agencies probing this matter are not showing interest and going with a too slow speed on this serious matter due to some reasons. According to statistics, when the FIR was registered in 2020, this case was the second big case after Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi’s 13000 crore bank fraud case.

Forensic Audit is too very helpful

In the bank’s FIR, Uday Desai and his associates have been accused of submitting fake documents to get loans from the bank. The Desai brothers’ account showed signs of stress when letters of credit began to be transferred with banks due to non-receipt of export proceeds. The account of Desai’s company was eventually classified as a non-performing asset (NPA) by the bank consortium. A ‘forensic audit’ of the company’s accounts was also conducted by the bank, in which it was found that there was no actual export of any goods. There was also mismatch of vessel movement data vis-a-vis loading and discharge ports. Forensic investigation also revealed that the Desai group indulged in money laundering by providing unsecured loans to people well known to them.

Irresponsible attitude of the probing agencies

It was also revealed from this investigation that Desai along with his knowers had done horse trading worth about ten thousand crores.
The irrisponsible attitude of agencies probing big scams like bank frauds only gives such criminals a chance to leave the country. If strict action is taken by the agencies, such a message goes to the public that the investigating agencies are doing their work autonomously and impartially.

No guilty person should be spared

The principle of the top investigative agencies of the country should be that no guilty person will be spared. Then he may be a supporter of any ideology or political party. Agencies will not spare any such criminal, by doing this a message of fear will go among the criminals and people’s faith in these agencies will also increase.

(The author is Managing Editor, Kalachakra News Bureau, Delhi)