CHENNAI: A special CBI court in Chennai has convicted and sentenced four accused, including a former assistant general manager of Bank of Maharashtra and a former bank officer, in connection with a Rs 1.71 crore bank fraud case registered in 2003. The court awarded rigorous imprisonment of 4-16 years and imposed a total fine of Rs 1.04 crore.
The CBI had registered the case in February 2003 based on a complaint from the Bank of Maharashtra, alleging that TSR Vasudevan, proprietor of Lalitha Oils, T Palani, proprietor of Tamil Nadu Marketing, and T Vetrivel, who posed as a representative of Vetri Oils, had opened current accounts in the name of their firms at the bank’s Valmiki Nagar branch in Chennai.
In collusion with the accused, R Ramesh, then assistant general manager, and Nirmala, then an officer at the bank, sanctioned bill purchase facilities beyond their authority. Vasudevan and Palani misused the facility by submitting forged bills in the name of the non-existent firm Vetri Oils, causing a wrongful loss of Rs 1.71 crore to the bank, the CBI said.