The CBI on Wednesday carried out searches at the premises of infrastructure firm IVRCL, its Managing Director E Sudhir Reddy and Joint Managing Director R Balarami Reddy, who have been booked by the agency for an alleged fraud worth over Rs 4,800 crore against a consortium of banks, officials said.
The agency has booked the Hyderabad-based company and its directors on a complaint from the State Bank of India, CBI Spokesperson RC Joshi said.
"It was alleged that the accused in connivance with unknown public servants and others defrauded the consortium of public sector banks, consisting of State Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Canara Bank, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, EXIM Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, Union Bank of India and caused a loss of Rs 4,837 crore to the banks," he said.
He said that in the complaint, it was alleged that the borrower company represented by its Directors had availed various credit limits from the consortium of banks, and cheated them, without repaying the loan amount.
"It was also alleged that as per the forensic audit report, the company made payments to related parties through letters of credit (LCs), without recording any purchase transactions in the books and routed the funds to the account of the company and thereby misappropriated the bank funds," Joshi said.
He said searches were conducted Wednesday at the residential and official premises of the accused at Hyderabad which led to recovery of several incriminating documents.
This comes just days after the CBI filed cases against another Hyderabad-based company, Transstroy (India) Ltd, for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks of Rs 7,926 crore. An official had said that it was alleged that the Transstroy and its directors had availed credit facilities on multiple banking arrangements. The consortium was formed with other banks, led by Canara Bank. The official said it was further alleged that the accused had been involved in falsification of books of accounts, fudging of stock statements, tampering of balance sheets, round tripping of funds etc.
It was further alleged that the accused misappropriated bank funds and diverted the loan amount sanctioned and caused loss of Rs 7,926.01 crore to Canara Bank and other member banks. The account had become NPA and the fraud was reported. Canara Bank later clarified that it has an exposure of Rs 678.28 crore in the accused company.