In the biggest bank fraud in the past 75 years, totalling Rs 22,842 crore in India, public sector State Bank of India (SBI) has refuted allegations of delay in filing the complaint against Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The CBI had filed a case against ABG Shipyard, the flagship company of the ABG Group which builds and repairs ships in Dahej and Surat, and its directors Rishi Agarwal, Santhanam Muthuswamy and Ashwini Kumar on Saturday for allegedly defrauding 28 banks of Rs 22,842 crore.
In a statement issued on Sunday, SBI said that it had filed a complaint against ABG Shipyard with the CBI way back on November 8, 2019. on March 12, 2020, the bank filed a second complaint in August that year. According to the CBI, the agency acted on the complaint after “scrutinising” it for more than one-and-a-half years by filing an FIR on February 7. SBI issued the statement after All India Congress Committee general secretary Randeep Surjewala accused the Narendra Modi government of running a “loot and escape” flagship scheme for bank fraudsters.
SBI said that after the company was “financed under consortium arrangement with over two dozen lenders led by ICICI Bank”, the “account became a non-performing asset (NPA) in November 2013 due to poor performance”. As per the country’s largest public-sector lender, the “account was classified as NPA in July 2016 with effect from November 2013” as restructuring failed.
— source newsclick.in | 14 Feb 2022