NEW DELHI, Dec 23: The CBI has filed an FIR against Abhijeet Group promoted company Corporate Power Limited and its directors for alleged bank fraud of Rs 4,000 crore, officials said on Friday.
The agency on Thursday searched 16 locations in multiple cities, including Nagpur, Mumbai, Ranchi, Kolkata, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, and Vishakhapatnam, in connection with the case, they said.
Corporate Power Limited, a Kolkata-based special purpose vehicle promoted by Abhijeet Group for setting up a power plant in Jharkhand, allegedly committed a bank fraud of Rs 4037.87 crore involving a consortium of 20 banks, according to a complaint filed by Union Bank of India, now a part of the CBI FIR, the officials said.
They said several companies of Abhijeet Group and some of its directors are already facing CBI probes in connection with coal scam cases and are charge-sheeted as well.
Corporate Power Limited, initially named Chitarpur Coal and Power Ltd, had envisaged setting up a 540 MW power plant in Latehar district of Jharkhand in the configuration of 4×135 MW at a cost of Rs 2,900 crore, they said.
“It was further alleged that between 2009 and 2013, the borrower had submitted manipulated project cost statements and diverted bank funds. It was also alleged that trade receivables, main transactions to related parties and funds were diverted to a web of various companies that were dummy accounts. Accordingly, the borrower was able to siphon off funds,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
In the FIR, the agency has named the company and its promoters and directors, including Manoj Jayaswal, Abhishek Jayaswal, Abhijeet Jayaswal, Rajiv Kumar, Bishal Jaiswal, Munna Kumar Jaiswal, P.N. Krishnan, Rajeev Goyal, Arun Kumar Shrivastava, S N Gaikwad, Prem Prakash Sharma and Arun Gupta as the accused, it said.
The Union Bank, in its complaint, has alleged that the accused persons cheated the bank with “criminal intent” to make a wrongful gain for themselves, according to the statement.
They allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy disbursing amounts of working capital from a bank to a web of various companies that are related party companies, it said.
The funds were siphoned off to related companies shown as creditors in the account books, the bank has alleged in the complaint.
“…Borrowers have committed the offence with utmost dishonest and criminal intentions of causing huge loss to the bank and the exchequer for wrongful gain to themselves by creating fake companies to rotate the money within the dummy companies…,” it further alleged, as per the statement. (PTI)
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