Appears some top guy did not get his cut! CBI catching folks on corruption
charges is rarely heard of!Of course, there is a long way to go with the
lawyers and courts taking their own sweet time prosecutethese guys. Most of the
times CBI is used by the Central government as a tool for intimidating its
opponents.
Naguesh
>From the Times of India
>websitehttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/CBI-arrests-top-LIC-officer-seven-others-in-housing-loan-scam/articleshow/6983231.cms
MUMBAI: The CBI on Wednesday claimed to have busted a major housing loan racket
with the arrest of CEO of LIC Housing Finance Ramachandran Nair and seven
others including three top officials of public sector banks on charges of
corruption and criminal conspiracy.
Apart from Nair, those arrested are Naresh K Chopra, Secretary (Investment),
LIC, R N Tayal, General Manager of Bank of India (Delhi), Maninder Singh Johar,
Director of Central Bank of India, Venkoba Gujjal, Deputy GM of Punjab National
Bank (Delhi).
Rajesh Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of Mumbai-based firm Money
Matters Ltd and two of its employees -- Suresh Gattani and Sanjay Sharma-- were
among those arrested, CBI said.
The officials allegedly colluded with the firm to sanction large scale
corporate loans, overriding mandatory conditions for such approvals along with
other irregularities.
In Delhi, the Finance Ministry said it was contemplating a departmental inquiry
against the accused officials.
"The CBI has busted a racket wherein a private financial services company, its
CMD and other associates were allegedly bribing senior officials of public
sector banks and financial institutions for facilitating large scale corporate
loans," the agency said.
"The officials of the firm acted as middlemen and conspired with Nair and other
officials from the public sector banks and arranged large scale corporate
loans, overriding mandatory conditions for such approvals with other
irregularities, in the year 2009," CBI Joint Director (Western Region) P
Kandaswamy told reporters in Mumbai.
The arrested public servants had received illegal gratification from the
private financial services company, he added.
All the eight accused, who have been booked for conspiracy and other sections
of Prevention of Corruption Act, were today produced before a special CBI
court, which remanded them to CBI custody till November 29. The CBI has
registered five cases in this regard.
CBI said that officers of top management and middle management of various
public sector banks and financial institutions viz. Bank of India, Central Bank
of India, Punjab National Bank, LIC and LIC Housing Finance Ltd were receiving
illegal gratifications from the private financial services company who were
acting as mediators and facilitators for corporate loans and other facilities
from financial institutions.
"They were also gathering confidential business information from financial
institutions," it said.
Searches were conducted at various locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Jaipur,
Kolkata and Jalandhar, which have resulted in seizure of incriminating
documents.
