News Analysis India

Tag: ABG Shipyard

  • ED files money laundering case in ABG Shipyard bank loan case

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The ED has registered a criminal case of money laundering against ABG Shipyard Ltd, its former promoters along with others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks of over Rs 22,842 crore, official sources said on Wednesday.

    The action comes days after the CBI registered an FIR in the country’s biggest alleged bank loan fraud case.

    The ED case has been filed under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the investigators studied the CBI complaint and the forensic audit report, sources said.

    They added that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will specifically look into the alleged “diversion” of bank loan funds, the creation of shell firms to launder the public money and the role of the executives of the company and others.

    The CBI had booked ABG Shipyard Ltd and its then chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal along with others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks of over Rs 22,842 crore.

    It had also named the then executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, directors Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Vimal Nevetia and another company ABG International Pvt Ltd for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and abuse of official position under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The accused in the ED case are the same, they said.

  • Congress questions ‘silence’ of PM, FM on banking fraud by ABG Shipyard

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday stepped up its attack on the BJP government asking why the prime minister and the finance minister were silent on the big banking fraud of Rs 22,842 crore by ABG Shipyard.

    The opposition party also asked why Rishi Agarwal, the promoter of the Gujarat-based company, had been not arrested till date.

    Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to make India’s economy of USD 5 trillion but instead gave the country bank frauds of Rs 5.35 trillion in the last 7.5 years.

    He claimed that according to an RTI reply by the RBI, recovery rate in 2020-21 of these frauds is 0.7 per cent. He also claimed that the average daily loss to the banking industry due to frauds was Rs 195.5 crore.

    “After Rs 22,842 crore of public money was swindled, the ease of committing fraud in the country is the new scheme launched by the Modi government for bank fraudsters,” he told reporters.

    Vallabh said the biggest bank fraud of Rs 22,842 crore happened under the Modi government and after a 5 year delay, the CBI finally registered an FIR on February 7, 2022, against ABG Shipyard, owned by Agarwal and others, for duping 28 banks.

    “The Modi government is running ‘Loot and Escape’ and ‘ease of committing fraud’ as a flagship scheme for bank fraudsters.

    The fraudsters’ lists include Nirav Modi i.e. Chhota Modi, Mehul Choksi, Ami Modi, Neeshal Modi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya, Jatin Mehta, Chetan Sandesara, Nitin Sandesara and many others, and Rishi Agarwal and others are the new entrants in the list of fraudsters.

    “Why are the PM and the FM mum on India’s biggest banking fraud of Rs 22,842 crore? Why has Rishi Agarwal, the promoter of ABG Shipyard, not been arrested till date,” the Congress leader asked.

    He also questioned the status of Agarwal’s citizenship and why the RBI is behaving as a mere spectator without any action.

  • Loans to ABG Shipyard turned NPAs prior to 2014: Finance Minister

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the ABG Shipyard account turned NPA during the erstwhile UPA regime and the banks took lesser than normal time to detect the fraud perpetrated by the shipping firm.

    “In this particular case with that kind of a measurement, actually, I should say to the credit to the banks, they’ve taken lesser than what is normally an average time to detect these kinds of frauds,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a press conference after addressing the members of the RBI board.

    The minister said normally banks take 52-56 months of time to detect such cases and initiate follow-up actions.

    The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently booked ABG Shipyard Limited, its former chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and others for allegedly cheating a consortium of two dozen lenders led by ICICI Bank.

    ABG Shipyard fraud is much higher than the one perpetrated by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, who allegedly cheated the Punjab National Bank (PNB) of around Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs).

    Sitharaman also said that during the NDA regime, health of banks has improved and they are in position to raise funds from the market.

    Addressing the press conference, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das asserted that RBI’s inflation projections are quite robust. He further said the momentum of inflation, from October 2021 onwards, is on a downward slope.

    “It’s primarily the statistical reasons the base effect which is leading to higher inflation especially in third quarter, and the same base effect will play in different ways in the coming months,” Das said.