HYDERABAD: A special CBI court here has acquitted 11 people, including two State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) staffers, in a 2007 bank fraud case involving Rs 31 lakh. In its verdict, the court said that several loopholes were found in the probe by the agency.
In 2007, a case of fraud was registered by the CBI against nine persons, who owned stone industries in Tandur, which is now in Vikarabad district. Two SBH employees, who had been working at the bank’s Tandur branch, were accused of processing loans illegally.
The court said, “Proper investigation was not conducted, and the investigating officer also tried his might to further water down the case of prosecution, which is already crippled with several infirmities.” During the trial, 51 witnesses and 155 exhibits were examined by the court. The staffers had allegedly caused a loss of Rs 30.93 lakh to the State Bank of Hyderabad.
Though specific allegations were made against the then manager of SBH, Tandur branch, for sanctioning loans in favour of the firms, he was let off by CBI. Several allegations were made regarding 129 loans sanctioned by him, of which 74 loans were processed by the accused staffers.
Further, the court pointed out that the CBI did not collect any material to fix the criminal liability of the accused. CBI also did not collect any documentary evidence or file any before the court to show that the loan accounts of the accused firms have become NPAs. It also did not cite suppliers to the firms as witnesses, nor examined them. The court concluded that the prosecution failed to establish the alleged criminal conspiracy among the accused.