Bogus FCNR loans at Syndicate Bank

In one such case the signature of a depositor, late C V Mehta who expired on December 19, 1995 was used to give loans against his FCNR deposits. Manager B V Pai who is under suspension for the alleged crime, had given a loan against deposit (LD 176/95) on July 20, 1995 for Rs 10 lakh to one S J Maradia against the FCNR deposit No 7/95 jointly held by Chandrakant V Mehta and Anil C Mehta.“This case happened sometimes ago and the enquiry must be going on. The branch manager was suspended and I do not have full details about the case”, said the bank’s spokesman.

“Subsequent sanction/release of Rs 6 lakh was made on December 19, 1995. We have received following credits to the loan account – Rs 3 lakh on August 2, 1995, Rs 50,000 on August 6, 1995, Rs 1 lakh on August 10, 1995, etc till December 12, 1996. All the credits are made by S J Maradia or his representatives except the last credit of Rs 2 lakh,” said an internal inspection report of the bank.

The branch manager sanctioned the loan without the consent of the depositor and without obtaining the duly discharged FCNR deposit receipt. The closed loan documents were destroyed except for the debit voucher. The loan documents bears the signature of C V Mehta and S J Marodia but the signature of C V Mehta is forged. Actually, C V Mehta had expired three month before the transactions on September 11, 1995. “The loan was availed without the consent of the depositor,” said the report. Several such loans were given to the same party during his tenure as branch manager.

“The Jogeswari branch manager B V Pai sanctioned and released the loan on July 20, 1995 against the forged signature of the depositor. Even though the deposit was in joint names signatures of the joint depositor is not at all obtained. The second release and sanction of Rs 6 lakhs was made on December 19, 1995 where as the depositor C V Mehta was no more on that date as he expired on September 11, 1995. In fact the branch manger conspired with Maridia and sanctioned huge amounts of loans against the FCNR deposits of NRIs without the consent of the deposit holders.

Deals in the same fashion included LD 111/94 of Rs 13 lakh against FCNR deposit number 1/94 of Vinod V Sheth which was later cleared through another LD 52/95 through the savings bank account of S J Moradia. The signature appearing on the debit voucher was forged. Several loans against FCNR deposits bearing the following loan numbers LD 148/94, LD 52/95, LD 143/94, LD 187/95, LD 176/95, LD 273/95, LD 275/95, LD 276.95, LD112/96, LD 113/96 were detected.

According to CBI sources, the proceeds of all the loans are credited to the savings bank account of S J Maradia without any express consent of the concerned depositors on the security of which loans were arranged. The purported signature of the depositor on loan documents and releated deposit receipts wherever available except in one case was forged signatures. The loan proceeds were used by S J Marodia to clear the earlier loans against deposits and a part of it to give financial accomodation to various companies. These companies included Gujarat Texapin Ltd from Surat (Rs 25 lakh on May 5, 1995), Manstha Productions of Pradeep Kumar Jain (Rs 20 lakh on September 5, 1994), Ramraj Kalamandir (Rs 60 lakh from May 2, 1995 to May 5, 1995, Rs 16 lakh to Mohammadaly Akbarally on various occasions.

All the loans were sanctions and released by B V Pai as manager, all the signatures on loan documents and related deposit receipts were ever available were forged, the loan proceeds are credited to the savings bank account of S J Maradia without the consent of the depositors. At the time of arranging these loans, original deposit receipts were held by the depositors except in case of C V Mehta and Anil Mehta.