BENGALURU: The Special Court for CBI cases, sentenced five people accused of cheating and defrauding the Syndicate Bank, Jalahalli Branch, to undergo 5 years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 62.30 lakh. Rs 61 lakh is to be paid to the victim - Syndicate Bank, Jalahalli Branch, (now Punjab National Bank), as compensation, and the remaining amount is to be forfeited to the state government.
The convicts are N Sathyababu, the then senior manager of Syndicate Bank, Jalahalli branch, S Bharathi, H Nalinakshi, S Ramesh and Prince Neshan. Out of Rs 62.30 lakh fine, Sathyababu has to pay Rs 15.95 lakh, Bharathi, Nalinakshi, Ramesh have to pay Rs 13.70 lakh each, and Prince Neshan has to pay Rs 5.25 lakh. The five of them had conspired to cheat the bank.
Judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat passed the order sentencing the accused. "Looking into the aggravating and mitigating factors and also considering the materials produced before the court, the act of the accused could be construed as an economic offence... The society at large can be considered as the victim of the fraudulent act," the judge said.
Sathyababu had conspired with the others and had sanctioned loan of Rs 25.80 lakh to Bharathi, who was the proprietor of M/s Manjunatha Engineering Works, and a loan of Rs 20 lakh to M/s Mahalakshmi Granites belonging to Nalinakshi, who is intended to purchase machinery from Ramesh, proprietor of M/s DJ Max Engineering System, during 2014-15, under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME)Scheme.
These units were non-existent. However, Sathyababu disbursed the loan amount without conducting pre and post-sanction visits to verify whether the units were in existence or not. This was a clear violation of procedures and guidelines as laid by the RBI, and the Bank.
He also failed to verify the genuineness of the quotation and CIBIL report. As of the date of filing of the chargesheet, the accused had caused a loss of Rs 51.21 lakh to the bank by diverting funds for purposes other than the purchase of machinery.
Prince Neshan, the partner of M/s T and T Concrete Bricks, availed a term loan of Rs 9 lakh and Over Draft facility of Rs 16 lakh from the bank, but he also siphoned off the loan sanctioned which was availed for purchasing machinery.