Express News Service
NEW DELHI: A week after registering the case against ABG Shipyards Limited for banking fraud, the CBI on Tuesday issued the Look Out Circulars (LOCs) against the all accused, including the directors and other executives of the company.
The firm was involved in a scam of approximately a Rs 22,842 crore loan given to it by 28 banks, including the complainant — the State Bank of India.
The CBI has sounded alert to all airports and the other border crossing points along the international border so that no accused of this mega bank loan scam can escape from the country. The LOCs are issued by the law enforcement agencies to stop the accused of a cases from fleeing the country via airports and other points of border crossing.
CBI spokesperson RC Joshi here on Tuesday told the media that the account of ABG Shipyard Limited, which was in business with the SBI since 2002, was declared NPA on November 30 in 2013. “As per the bank complaint, the NPA of ABG shipyard Limited is to the tune of Rs 22,842 crore and the majority of disbursement of bank loan happened between 2005 and 2012 by a consortium of 28 banks, led by SBI and ICICI Bank,” Joshi said while sharing details of the bank loan scam.
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M/S NV Dand & Associate was deputed to conduct a stock audit of the ABG shipyards on September 10 in 2014, he added.
“The audit report was submitted on March 30 in 2016 pointing out various discrepancies on the part of accused company. Subsequently, the account of ABH Shipyards Limited was declared NPA on July 30, 2016 with effect from November 30, 2013”, Joshi further said.
The CBI spokesperson further said that various other banks also declared the accounts of ABH Shipyard ‘fraudulent’ and NPA between April 2019 and March 2020. “The bank loan forgeries by the company were found to have been committed between 2005 and 2012 during perusal of records and initial investigation after registering the case”, Joshi said.
After registering the case against the company on February 7, 2022, the CBI had raided 13 premises of the accused firm on February 12 and recovered many incriminating documents, including the books of accounts of accused borrowers, company purchases, share registers, and various contracts papers.