Rotomac Fraud: Six Chargesheets Filed Against Owner Vikram Kothari
Both Vikram Kothari and his son have been booked for cheating a consortium of seven nationalised banks.
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The Income Tax Department, on 26 February, said it has filed six charge sheets against Rotomac owner Vikram Kothari for alleged tax evasion.
The prosecution complaints were filed in a special court in Lucknow under various sections of the Income Tax Act, they said. The taxman had earlier attached four immovable assets of the Rotomac group and its promoters in this case.
It had also attached 14 accounts of the group in various bank branches in Uttar Pradesh, PTI reported. These assets were attached to "recover outstanding tax demands" of about Rs 106 crore from the group, the I-T Dept said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) produced the Kotharis in the court of Special Judge MP Chaudhari after bringing them to Lucknow on transit remand from Delhi.
Both Vikram Kothari and his son have been booked for cheating a consortium of seven nationalised banks. Kothari's wife, Sadhna, is also accused in the case.
The CBI arrested the father-son duo on Thursday in Delhi after the agency alleged the accused were not cooperating with the probe.
On a complaint of Bank of Baroda, the CBI had registered an FIR against the Kotharis for allegedly defaulting on loans taken by Rotomac Global Private Ltd from the consortium of banks from 2008 onwards.
The CBI initiated the action on the complaint of Bank of Baroda, a member of the consortium led by Bank of India, which had approached the agency fearing that Vikram Kothari might flee India after billionaire diamantaire Nirav Modi and owner of Gitanjali Gems Mehul Choksi reportedly left India before the registration of a case against them.
Modi and Choksi are the two main accused in the alleged Rs 11,400-crore Punjab National Bank scam.
In the Rotomac case, the principal exposure of the banks regarding the loan is:
- Bank of India - Rs 754.77 crore,
- Bank of Baroda - Rs 456.63 crore,
- Overseas Bank of India - Rs 771.07 crore,
- Union Bank of India - Rs 458.95 crore,
- Allahabad Bank - Rs 330.68 crore,
- Bank of Maharashtra - Rs 49.82 crore
- Oriental Bank of Commerce - Rs 97.47 crore
On 23 February, a Delhi court allowed one-day transit remand to the CBI to take Vikram Kothari and his son Rahul to Lucknow to produce them before a court there in connection with the case, saying their presence in Uttar Pradesh was required to recover the alleged siphoned-off money.
While seeking their transit remand, the CBI had claimed that it needed to recover the crime proceeds and unearth the larger conspiracy. The agency sought the remand "to produce the accused before the competent court of M P Chaudhary, special judge, Lucknow, in the interest of justice".
Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, appearing for the Kotharis, had opposed the CBI plea, saying the accused were "illegally detained".
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