Being touted as one of the biggest bank fraud case, the Rs 22,842 crore ABG Shipyards scam left the nation in shock after the CBI on Saturday filed an FIR against the company and its directors for allegedly cheating a consortium of Banks.

 

The complainant in the case, the State Bank of India, on Sunday issued a formal release in which it stated that the account became NPA on November 30, 2013. Several efforts were made to revive the company operations but could not succeed.

 

The CBI filed the FIR naming Rishi Aggarwal and Santhanam Muthuswamy, the directors of ABG Shipyards as an accused. It has been alleged that the company, through its directors, took a loan of Rs 2,925 crore from the SBI and willingly didn’t pay. They also took loans from over 2 dozen different banks and never paid it.

 

 

 

SBI said that ICICI Bank was the lead lender in the consortium and IDBI was the second lead. However, the complaint to the CBI was made by SBI since it is the largest PSB lender.

 

In its release, SBI mentioned, “Account was restructured under CDR mechanism in March 2014 by all lenders. However, as the shipping industry was going through a down turn, one of the worst ever seen, the operations of the company could not revive.”

 

“As the restructuring failed, account classified as NPA in July 2016 with back dated effect from 30th Nov. 2013. E&Y were appointed as Forensic Auditor by lenders during April 2018 and they submitted their report in January 19. E&Y report was placed before the Fraud Identification Committee of 18 Lenders in 2019,” it further added.

 

 

 

The first complaint was filed with CBI in Nov 2019. There was continuous engagement between CBI and Banks and further information was getting exchanged. SBI highlighted that the account is presently undergoing liquidation under a NCLT driven process.

 

It also clarified that at no point in time, there was any effort to delay the process. The lenders forum diligently follows through with CBI in all such cases.