7 awarded 1 year RI in bank fraud case

COIMBATORE: A nationalised bank branch manager, cashier and five others were sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment on Friday by CBI special court here for their involvement in a bank fraud of Rs 2.08cr in 1999. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 3,000 each on them.
They have been identified as S Janardhanan, branch manager, V Palanichetti, cashier, both from Punjab National Bank, Dindigul, Govindasamy, managing director of JagdeeshTextiles, Udumalpet, Lakshmipathi Raju, proprietor, Annai Electricals, Udumalpet, Balasubramaniam, an employee of Jagdeesh Textiles, K Subramanian from Pollachi and Guruvayurappan, manager of Jagdeeswaran Textiles.
The convicts and four others had hatched a conspiracy and submitted a loan application on behalf of their firms in the names of non-existing employees towards purchase of house hold items by using the bank's consumer loan, making false and forged salary slips and performa invoices to avail the loan. The branch manager and cashier sanctioned loan amounts without verifying the genuineness of the applicants. They obtained loans for 834 non-existing employees. The bank had sanctioned Rs25,000 to each applicant in 1999, amounting to a total of Rs 2.08cr.
The anti-corruption branch of CBI, Chennai, investigated the matter and registered a case against 11 people including the bank branch manager and cashier.
The court has acquitted MS Velu, managing director of Karthik Paper Mills, Pollachi, Muthiah, employee of the Karthik Paper Mills and Uma Shankar, relative of Velu, from the case. One person died during the trial.