Rs160 cr loan fraud: CBI registers FIR against textile major

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 17

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today said it had booked textile major S Kumars Nationwide Ltd for allegedly indulging in loan fraud and cheating Union Bank of India worth over Rs 160 crore.

Agency officials said they acted on a complaint from the bank, which alleged that the company and its promoters and directors, including Managing Director Nitin Kasliwal and directors Vijay Goverdhandas Kalantri, Anil Kumar Channa, Rajinder Krishan Garg and Jagadeesh Sanjeeva Reddy, indulged in fraudulent transactions causing a loss to the bank.

The textile firm had availed various credit facilities from the bank, which turned into a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2013, and the account was declared “fraud” in 2020 after a forensic audit by KPMG, the officials said.

The bank in its complaint to the CBI, now a part of the FIR, has alleged that the company defrauded it by directing 94 per cent sales to selective distributors, writing off receivables from customers and entering into “doubtful” resale transactions to the same customer at heavily discounted prices.

In the complaint, the bank also said the forensic audit had red-flagged transactions with two potentially linked customers and over three-fourth transactions with non-operating entities, the officials said, adding that it was also alleged that auditors of the company had investments in the company.

The CBI in its FIR has alleged that the borrower company and its directors “caused wrongful loss of Rs 160.68 crore” to the bank and wrongful gain to themselves during the period 2013-2018.

It said the directors named in the FIR, in collusion and in conspiracy with one another and unidentified officials, defrauded the bank by “taking recourse” to commit various cognisable and non-cognisable offences.