ABG Shipyard Bank Fraud: Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav Target Modi Govt
The Congress leader said these days of “loot and deceit” are "good days" only for the “friends” of Prime Minister Modi.
New Delhi: Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the recent alleged bank fraud incidents in the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said such frauds have never taken place with people’s money in the history of Independent India.
The Congress leader said these days of “loot and deceit” are "good days" only for the “friends” of Prime Minister Modi.
“Till now Rs 5,35,000 crore bank frauds have taken place during Modi era - never in 75 years such fraud has happened with the money of the people of India. These days of loot and deceit are good days only for Modi friends,” he tweeted in Hindi.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also criticized the Centre on the issue stating “the people from a particular place are found involved” whenever major scams are unearthed in the country.
“Those who have read the newspapers would be knowing that a major bank scam has taken place. Whenever these major scams take place, people from a particular place are involved,” Yadav said referring to the Rs 22,842 crore bank fraud by Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard Ltd, PTI reported.
“In the scams, which had taken place earlier, a number of people were from that place,” he added addressing an election meeting at Sikandararau in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister claimed that a poor person has to mortgage his land to avail a bank loan while big businessmen fly abroad after getting a huge loan.
“The money in the bank is of the poor. When a poor person wants to avail a loan, he has to mortgage his land,” said Yadav.
“But these big businessmen take a big loan from the banks, arrange an air ticket and go to a foreign country,” he added.
The opposition leaders’ remarks come as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered an FIR against ABG Shipyard and its directors for allegedly duping a consortium of 28 banks to the tune of Rs 22,842 crore.
Commenting on the same, the State Bank of India (SBI) has said the “account is presently undergoing liquidation under a NCLT driven process”, adding “at no point in time, there was any effort to delay the process”.
The SBI said the lenders’ forum diligently follows through with the CBI in all such cases.
“A fraud is declared basis the Forensic Audit report findings that is discussed thoroughly in joint lenders meetings. Typically, when a fraud is declared, an initial complaint is preferred with CBI and based on their enquiries further information is gathered,” the SBI said in a statement.
“In a few cases, when substantial additional information is gathered, a second complaint incorporating full and complete details is filed which forms basis for the FIR,” the statement added.
The SBI said ABG Shipyard, which was incorporated on March 15, 1985, has been under banking arrangements since 2001.
“Financed under consortium arrangement over a two dozen lenders. The leader in Consortium was ICICI Bank. Due to poor performance, the account became NPA on 30/11/2013. Several efforts were made to revive the company operations but could not succeed,” the statement added.
The statement further said although, ICICI Bank was the lead lender in the consortium and IDBI was the second lead, it was preferred that SBI being the largest PSB lender lodges the complaint with the CBI.
“The first complaint was filed with the CBI in November 2019. There was a continuous engagement between CBI and banks and further information was getting exchanged,” the statement added.
The SBI said the account was restructured under CDR mechanism in March 2014 by all lenders.
“However, as the shipping industry was going through a down turn, one of the worst ever seen, the operations of the company could not be survived,” the statement added.
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