New Delhi: It has taken the CBI a little over half a year to break last year's record of bank fraud cases. Interestingly, this year with just 66 FIRs until July 21, the central probe agency has kicked off investigations into bank frauds worth over Rs 20,197.76 crore - the highest in a year since 2017 (the year from which the agency started making all FIRs public). In all of 2019, the agency had registered a total of 91 bank fraud cases, involving an amount of Rs 19,830.14 crore.
Despite the pandemic, the Central Bureau of Investigation has continued functioning albeit with complaints of alleged discrimination against junior-ranked officers, according to sources in the know. With most FIR registrations in bank fraud cases involving heavy paperwork, sources have said that senior officers ask all proposals requiring approvals and permissions of the competent authority to be sent either through the internal CAS module or through e-mail. They added that subordinate staff are usually asked not to enter the offices of senior officials unless absolutely required.
While the agency had registered a relatively fewer number of cases in March, April and May; as far as bank fraud cases are concerned, the maximum number of FIRs were filed in June (21), involving fraud of over Rs 2,500 crore. The federal agency has been breaking its record for registering bank fraud cases consistently every year since 2017 when it had registered 31 FIRs involving an amount of Rs 11,352 crore. The following year, 52 cases were filed with a fraud amount of Rs 16,091 crore.
Significantly, this year, of the total fraud amount, 73.5 per cent are in just eight FIRs, each of which involves fraud of above Rs 500 crore and some of which even have common accused. This is largely owing to enormous fraud cases unearthed this year such as the Yes Bank cases (Rs 6,015 crore in two FIRs involving DHFL Group and Avantha Group); Frost International Group (Rs 3,599.24 crore in two FIRs); Educomp Solutions (Rs 1995.36 crore in one case) and a peculiar case of 51 shell companies in Tamil Nadu defrauding multiple banks of Rs 1,038.34 crore.
Some other high-profile cases this year include a second bank fraud case against Moser Baer and its director Ratul Puri (Rs 787.25 crore); Saket-based Radikal Foods Limited, run by Siddharth Chaudhary and Anju Chaudhary (Rs 819.48 crore); the case involving Hilal Rather, the son of former J&K Minister Abdul Rahim Rather (Rs 177.68 crore fraud with J&K Bank) and that of Delhi-based Shree Bankey Behari Exports Pvt Ltd (Rs 604.81 crore).
Besides, the probe agency also registered 18 cases where the fraud amount was between Rs 100 crore and Rs 500 crore, in at least two of which the complainant was SBI and due to delay in filing the fraud complaint, the accused were found to have fled the country. Gujarat-based Ardor group has found itself in this bracket this year. With a total of four cases against two of its group companies, group officials have been booked in bank fraud cases involving an amount of nearly Rs 300 crore.
Moreover, of the 66 cases registered this year so far, 34.84 per cent have State Bank of India as one of the complainant banks. Punjab National Bank came in second with 14 of these FIRs, having it as a complainant, following which banks like Bank of India and Union Bank of India were the most frequent complainant banks. Of course, these banks filed common complaints in some of the cases.
Curiously, two relatively smaller bank fraud cases were registered by the agency against Agnipa Energo Limited (in March) and Ginni Gold Jewellers Pvt Ltd (in June), details for which were briefed by officials but the FIRs for these cases are yet to be uploaded.
However, what is of note in this data is that this fraud amount of over Rs 20,000 crore is exclusive of the massive cross border Videocon-Mozambique fraud case registered this year, for which the agency itself is yet to calculate the total wrongful loss to banks.
While most of these cases involve some form of credit fraud or wilful default by the accused companies and its directors; some also include loans-for-kickbacks fraud schemes and even one case of foreign exchange fraud in January worth Rs 8.16 crore.