BHUBANESWAR: The State government on Wednesday handed over the case involving financial irregularities of Rs 29.57 crore in Rourkela branch of Odisha State Cooperative Bank (OSCB) to the Crime Branch of police.
The financial fraud in the apex cooperative bank was detected after a special audit conducted by the office of Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
The special audit detected serious irregularities in 1,495 loan accounts involving a credit disbursement of Rs 29.57 crore during a period of 10 years from March, 2005 to March, 2015. The loans were sanctioned without securing collaterals from the borrowers, Cooperation Minister SN Patro said.
According to the special audit report, loan amounting to Rs 101.91 crore remained unrealised in 5,550 accounts till March 31, 2015. While 2,204 borrowers have defaulted loan repayment amounting to Rs 17.26 crore, the audit found that loan amounting Rs 29.57 crore was sanctioned in a mala fide way.
Patro said three branch managers - Siba Kumar Das, Sanjib Kumar Mishra and Raghunath Sahu - of the OSCB branch were responsible for the financial fraud causing huge loss to the bank. The audit team had recommended recovery of Rs 28.89 crore from Sahu, Rs 67.5 lakh from Mishra and Rs 65,427 from Das.
The Minister said he has directed the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to hand over the case to Economic Offence Wing of the Crime Branch of police and initiate recovery proceedings against the three former branch managers.
Patro has further directed the bank to engage a special lawyer for initiating cases in the appropriate court of law against the debtors for attachment of their property.