Amidst the recent controversies over the Punjab National Bank loan scam, the authorities of the State Bank of India ~ another leading PSU bank has pressed the panic button and sought CBI inquiry against a number of its senior officials and the directors of a private operated agro-marketing farm relating to repeated loans worth crores of rupees extended by way of fraudulent mortgage of a single property in Kalna in Burdwan (East).

The office of the SP, Central Bureau of Investigation (Economic Offence Wing) at CGO Complex, Kolkata on 19 February has registered an FIR against a bunch of SBI officials and the directors of a Kalna based agro farm.

Mr Purusottam Behera, Regional Manager with the SBI’s Regional Business office in Burdwan, on 7 February had forwarded a complaint to CBI on the issue. Mr Behera charged: “The circumstances indicate the promoters of the farm in connivance with the bank officers dishonestly and fraudulently mortgaged the property in a loan which was already mortgaged by them against another loan account.”

He further ascertained: “It is a clear case of well planned conspiracy and criminal motive to defraud the bank by inducing the bank to part with public money.”

The SBI’s Regional Business office has slapped charges of ‘cheating, suppression of facts, making multiple mortgage of property and misuse of bank funds meant for loan’ against the farm directors.

Five Customer Service Officers with the SBI and three retired Desk Officers with the SBI’s Agricultural Development Branch in Kalna have been named in the FIR who were ‘involved in processing the loans against fraudulent mortgage’ to the farm.

Mr Behera stated: “The bank officers failed to take due diligence to verify the multiple mortgage of the common property offered as collateral.”

The agro marketing farm set up in 2007 in Kalna had been banking with SBI since 2009 and on 5

December 2009 it was sanctioned a Cash Credit facility of Rs 3 crore by the ADB of the SBI in Kalna.

On 16 March 2011, the loan matter was migrated to the Small & Medium Enterprise branch in Burdwan and the farm was approved a fresh Stand by Line of Credit (SLC is a sum of money not to exceed a predetermined money that can be borrowed in part or full from bankers) of Rs 45 lakh on 16 May 2014 by the Regional Credit Committee (RCC) of the bank and its Cash–Credit facility was augmented from Rs 3 crore to Rs 4 crore within four months by another RCC approval.

The agri-marketing farm had given collateral security as equitable mortgage of two landed properties measuring 0.15 acres and 0.20 acres, besides a cash collateral worth Rs 20 lakhs.

To help disbursement of loans for Fund Based Working Capital worth Rs 3 crore, it had tagged corporate guarantee of a rice mill in Kalna.

The fraud came to light when the unit stopped servicing the interest and the principal for a long time, which resulted declaring three of its accounts as Non-Performing Assets (NPA) by the bank on 28 November 2014 with an outstanding balance worth Rs 4.60 crore.

In course of verification of title deeds, the SBI, with utter surprise noticed that some portion of the property once were mortgaged on 28 February 2007 to facilitate loan to a rice mill and was mortgaged further on 8 December 2009 to facilitate loan in favour of the agro-marketing farm.