Punjab industrialist’s premises raided
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 16: The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) conducted simultaneous raids at four places in Jammu and Jalandhar after unearthing about Rs 2 crore worth scam in Punjab National Bank (PNB) committed by an industrialist along with his associates and unnamed officers of the Bank and Revenue Department of the State.
Official sources said the CBI teams conducted raids in the industrial and residential complexes of Ravi Kumar, Proprietor of M/s SL Rubber Industries, Industrial Growth Centre (IGC) Samba and Krishan Kumar Sharma of Gangyal and recovered some important documents pertaining to the scam.
A number of Revenue Department and PNB officers were also involved in the scam and efforts were on to identify them, sources said, adding that a Regular Case No. 6/2-12 under Section 120-B read with 420, 468, 471 RPC read with 5(1) (D) of Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against the accused.
In addition to Ravi Kumar, an industrialist from Jalandhar, Punjab, presently running SL Rubber Industries at Industrial Growth Centre, Samba and Krishan Kumar Sharma of Gangyal, the unnamed officers of PNB and Revenue Department have also been named in the FIR.
Sources said Ravi Kumar had secured Rs 1.60 crore worth loan from PNB’s Rehari Chowk branch, which has subsequently gone up to Rs 1.75 crore, for SL Rubber Industries with the guarantee of Krishan Kumar Sharma by producing fake mortgage documents of non-existing property.
The fake documents of non-existent property at Chowadian had been prepared by the accused with the connivance of Revenue Department officials. The PNB officials, who were then at the helm of affairs, didn’t examine the documents and the property on spot and released loan in favour of the industrialist.
Soon the loan turned Non Performing Asset (NPA) causing heavy loss to the PNB.
When the Bank officials went to seize mortgaged property, they found that it didn’t exist on record. The Revenue officials had tampered with the record and prepared fake documents of the property for mortgage, sources said.
After registering a regular case in about Rs 2 crore worth scam, the CBI officials conducted simultaneous search in the industrial and residential complexes of Ravi Kumar at SL Rubber Industries, Industrial Growth Centre, Samba, Jalandhar and Gangyal residence of Krishan Kumar Sharma.
During searches, the CBI officials recovered some documents pertaining to the scam, sources said and added that the documents were being scrutinized by the CBI team headed by Inspector Lalit Kumar under the supervision of SP CBI Jammu Armandeep Singh.
They said the CBI was examining record of the Bank and other seized documents to ascertain identity of the Revenue officers, who had prepared fake documents for the industrialist of non-existent land, which had been mortgaged in favour of the Bank.
The PNB officials, who were at the helm of affairs at the time of sanction of such a big loan, were in the process of identification and would be quizzed to know whether they had deliberately ignored the mortgaged of non-existent land or it happened due to an error.
Sources said the industrialist and his guarantor have also been summoned for questioning.
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