SBI Files CBI Case Against Rs 400 Cr Defaulters Missing Since 2016

The case against them has been registered for forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

(Image: Altered By Lijumol Joseph/The Quint)

Four years after owners of Delhi-based Basmati rice exporter, Ram Dev International Limited, fled the country with over Rs 400 crore in unpaid loans, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against them last week, NDTV reported.

The company was classified as a non-performing asset in 2016. After 4 years, on 25 February, the State Bank of India (SB) filed a complaint against the defaulters. The CBI followed this up with a case filed over two months later, on 28 April. The case has been registered against the company and its directors, Naresh Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Sangita and other unknown public servants.

Ram Dev International allegedly borrowed Rs 414 crore from six banks. This includes, Rs 173.11 crore from SBI, Rs 76.09 crore from Canara Bank, Rs 64.31 crore from Union Bank of India, Rs 51.31 crore from Central Bank of India, Rs 36.91 crore from Corporation Bank and Rs 12.27 crore from IDBI Bank.

The case against them has been registered for forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

According to NDTV, which has assessed the copy of SBI’s complaint to the SCI, the complaint said that the company was classified as a non-performing asset (NPA) on 27 January 2016 with an outstanding of Rs 173.11 crore.

The complaint also reads, how a special audit by the banks into the company revealed that the accused persons had “falsified the accounts, fudged the balance-sheet and illegally removed the plant from the machinery in order to gain unlawfully at the cost of bank funds.”

After the account was declared a NPA in January 2016, SBI carried out a joint inspection in August and October 2016 during which the company members were missing. SBI has also said that there is has been no delay in filing the complaint, even though the missing status of this company was confirmed at least one year ago – in a case regarding another company that had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Documents reportedly show that Ram Dev International was taken to the NCLT for defaulting on a loan payment of Rs 30 lakh to a company named Mussadi Lal Krishna Lal. Since May 2018, NCLT had issued three warrants to the directors of Ram Dev International, but to no avail as none of them could be traced.

The NCLT was told in December 2018 that the accused had fled to Dubai.