CHENNAI: A contractor who mortgaged a government land in the prime Anna Nagar locality and fraudulently got loans for Rs 2.08 crore was sentenced to five years jail by a CBI special court in Chennai on Wednesday.
Contractor S Muthiah, who is also a relative of former AIADMK minister E Subbaiah, was given the land on lease by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board to build and run an educational institute in 2002. However, he did not build any institute, but instead mortgaged the land in two banks over a period of five years and secured loans to run his business and never repaid.
The CBI also booked a former chief manager of the Bank of Baroda M Kailasam on charges of colluding with Muthaih. He had issued a certificate that Muthaiah was repaying the loan dues regularly. This helped the contractor to cheat Repco Bank also and get another loan from the bank.
According to the special public prosecutor M V Dinakar, the prime convict S Muthiah during a period of five years from 2002 to 2006 colluded with the bank officials and obtained the loan by mortgaging the government property, along with a private property in Ashok Nagar, from Bank of Baroda and Repco Bank. He later defaulted the loans which prompted an enquiry by the CBI.
During probe, the anti-corruption branch of CBI investigation found out that Muthiah had obtained a letter from Kailasam, then chief manager of the Bank of Baroda, that Muthaiah has been repaying the loan dues regularly. Based on this, V Ramasamy, Regional head of REPCO Bank, Alwarpet also had provided a loan of Rs 1.10 crore. The CBI in their investigation found that there were no records of the property
documents of Muthiah are with the REPCO Bank.
The Anti-Corruption Branch of CBI in 2009 registered a case against Ramasamy, Kailasam and Muthiah on the allegation that the accused persons entered into a criminal conspiracy and cheated REPCO Bank.
After completion of the investigation, charge-sheet was filed against them under IPC for criminal conspiracy, cheating and prevention of corruption act.
On completion of the trial, S Jawahar, Judge for XI Special court CBI for cases, Chennai said the prosecution proved the charges registered against Kailasam and Muthiah. The court sentenced them to undergo RI for five years and slapped them with a fine of Rs 35 lakh. Ramasamy of Repco Bank was acquitted by the court.