The CBI filed a charge sheet against former Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) CMD Kapil Wadhawan and 74 others on Saturday in connection with a Rs 34,615 crore bank fraud case, officials said. In its charge sheet filed before a Special CBI court here, the agency has also named then director Dheeraj Wadhawan and former CEO Harshil Mehta as accused in the mega-scam case, they said.
The agency had registered a case in June in the DHFL bank fraud matter for alleged defrauding of a consortium of 17 banks to the tune of Rs 34,000 crore, making it the biggest banking loan fraud of the country, the officials said. In the charge sheet, the agency has listed 18 individuals, including former chairman and managing director (CMD) Kapil Wadhawan, and 57 companies through which funds were diverted, they alleged.
The officials said that an advocate, Ajay Vazirani, businessman Ajay Navandar, several chartered accountants, former executives of DHFL and other related companies have been named in the charge sheet as accused. The CBI had booked the Wadhawans and others on a complaint from the Union Bank of India, the leader of the 17-member lender consortium that had extended credit facilities to DHFL to the tune of Rs 42,871 crore between 2010 and 2018.
The agency in its charge sheet has alleged that Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, in a criminal conspiracy with others, misrepresented and concealed facts, committed criminal breach of trust and abused public funds to cheat the consortium to the tune of Rs 34,615 crore by defaulting on loan repayments from May 2019 onwards. The CBI has alleged that the company committed financial irregularities, diverted funds, fabricated books and round-tripped funds to "create assets for Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan" using public money.
Both are in judicial custody in connection with previous fraud cases against them. DHFL loan accounts were declared non-performing assets at different points in time by lender banks, the officials said. When DHFL was hit by investigation in January 2019 after media reports on allegations of siphoning off funds surfaced, the lender banks held a meeting on February 1, 2019, and appointed KPMG to conduct a "special review audit" of DHFL from April 1, 2015, to December 31, 2018.
The audit pointed to the diversion of funds in the garb of loans and advances to related and interconnected entities and individuals of DHFL and its directors. The scrutiny of account books showed that 66 entities having commonalities with DHFL promoters were disbursed Rs 29,100 crore against which Rs 29,849 crore remained outstanding, the CBI has alleged. Most of the transactions of such entities and individuals were in the nature of investments in land and properties, it has alleged. The CBI has kept the probe into other aspects of the case open, the officials said.
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