CBI court upholds trial court’s order in Rs 9-crore bank fraud case
Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Chandigarh, May 14
Jagjit Singh, Special Judge, CBI court, has upheld the order of the trial court, which framed charges against two accused – Ashwani Kumar and Anil Kumar – in an alleged Rs 9-crore fraud case with Canara Bank. The accused challenged the order of the trial court pronounced in November 2021 in which their applications to discharge them from the case were dismissed and charges were framed against them.
The CBI had registered an FIR against Vikas Walia and others on the basis of a complaint filed by the General Manager, Canara Bank, Chandigarh, on December 27, 2018, for the offences punishable under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC. Aggrieved with the order, the accused filed the appeal before the Special Judge, CBI court.
The counsel for the accused claimed that the CBI had registered the case against the revisionists without any basis. As per the complaint, Vikas Walia took loan after mortgaging his property. In the complaint, there was no reference of the accused and the CBI had inserted their names during the investigation.
The accused were neither the borrower nor guarantor nor signatory of any document submitted with the bank on the basis of which loan was sanctioned to Vikas Walia and Vernica Walia. It was pleaded that nothing had come during the investigation that the accused ever approached the bank or induced the bank to release the payment of the sanctioned CC limit.
Narender Singh, public prosecutor for the CBI, argued that the accused had taken loan for jewellery business and the CC limit was almost Rs 15 crore. False properties were mortgaged with the bank of an amount of Rs 6 crore. Subsequently when the loan was disbursed, it was diverted to the accounts of the accused persons amounting to Rs 20 lakh and Rs 75 lakh, respectively. There were no business transactions of the accused with others to get such funds from them. Rather, the said amount was from the amount disbursed by the bank. Therefore, the charge was rightly framed.
After hearing the arguments, the court said it could not be said that the accused had not committed any offence. Rather, there was a prima facie case to proceed with against them, and the evidence could be appreciated subsequently. In view of this, no merit was found in the present revision as filed, and the same is accordingly dismissed.
