The II Additional District Sessions Judge and Special Judge for CBI Cases in Coimbatore G. Senthil Kumar convicted the officer of a nationalised bank and two others to six years rigorous imprisonment on Friday, for their act of malpractice that made the bank incur a loss of Rs. 5.7 crore in 1996-97.
The Anti Corruption Branch of CBI, Chennai, which investigated the case, said in a press release that the prime accused S. Natarajan was an officer of Canara Bank at Mudalaipatti, Namakkal District when the forgery took place from June 1996 to January 1997. He conspired with S.A. Ravi, an ex-employee of the bank, P. Sekhar and P. Ayyavu from Bengaluru and R. Mani, who was a collection agent of the bank.
As part of the conspiracy, Sekhar opened an account with the Mudalaipatti Branch of the bank by producing false identity and address proofs with help from other accused. Ravi procured counterfeit outstation cheques and deposited them in Sekhar’s account.
Natarajan abused his power, knowing fully about the conspiracy, and helped in fraudulently crediting money to Sekhar’s account by showing it as an Inter Branch Advices (IBA) from Bangalore and Hyderabad. He also allowed withdrawal of the money by self cheques, bearer cheques and account payee cheques.
Natarajan also manipulated the bank records accordingly and destroyed the cheques. The well executed conspiracy to defraud the bank caused a total wrongful loss of Rs. 5.7 Crore to Canara Bank and corresponding gain to the conspirers.
After investigations CBI framed charges against the accused under 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 471 (using a forged document as genuine), 477A (falsification of accounts) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code. They were also booked under section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. On completion of hearing the case Additional District Judge Senthil Kumar on Friday convicted Natarajan, Sekhar and Ravi and sentenced them to six years RI and slapped a fine of Rs. 58,000 on them. The judge acquitted Mani from the case. Ayyavu died before charges were framed by the CBI.
