CBI Investigating Its Own? Probe In Bank Fraud Cases Turns Inward With Officers Under Scanner

In an embarrassing turn of events, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken up an internal probe as the agency booked its own officers over concerns of corruption. Read on.

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New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken up an internal probe as the agency booked its own officers over concerns of misusing official position and indulging in corruption with respect to bank fraud committed by companies.  The CBI began a search operation on Thursday morning, officials said as reported by news agency PTI. In an embarrassing turn of events, the agency is for obvious reasons silent over the case as it has to investigate its own officials over charges of accepting bribe from companies that committed bank fraud. This development has occurred amid the ongoing investigation against the entities. The officials revealed that the search operation is believed to have spanned across at least five locations. Some of the CBI officers are under the scanner for allegedly receiving regular payments from the accused companies, they said.

Bank Fraud Doubled In FY 2019-2020

Even after the Reserve Bank of India mandated implementation of early warning signals by lenders, Bank frauds more than doubled in the 2019-2020 fiscal year because of delayed detection. In the financial year that ended in June 2020, bank frauds worth more than Rs 1.85 lakh crore were reported as compared to over Rs 71,500 crore in the previous fiscal, RBI’s annual report for 2019-20 revealed. "Frauds have been predominantly occurring in the loan portfolio (advances category), both in terms of number and value. There was a concentration of large value frauds, with the top 50 credit-related frauds constituting 76% of the total amount reported as frauds during 2019-20," the annual report had stated. Public sector banks continued to be the bigger victim as they witnessed a 234% year-on-year rise in instances of fraud and accounted for 80% of the total such reported cases. Private banks had more than 18% of the total fraud cases while reporting an alarming rise of more than 500%. (With Agency Inputs)