While irregularities of Rs 1,500 crore at Sri Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank Niyamitha (SGRSBN) in Bengaluru have pushed around 38,000 clients into hardship, the bank’s sister company audit shows loans worth of 60 crore rupees were released on 90 accounts in a single day.
Sri Guru Sarvabhauma Souharda Credit Co-operative Society, a sister company of the bank, lost around Rs 284 crore to illegally adapt to the bad debts of the bank. In 174 cases, it was found that loans of Rs 149 benami crore were granted without collecting any documents. In a response given by the Minister of Cooperative Societies ST Somashekar to BJP MP Ravi Subramanya, this shows that the irregularities of the company were carried out in parallel with the bank.
The 2015-16 forensic audit showed that Rs 64 crore was embezzled in one year.
A company official said: “The audit report indicates that during 2015-2016, we observed that on November 27, 2015, 90 loan-for-deposit accounts (LDAs) were created by granting a loan to the company. ‘an amount of Rs 60 crore without any documentation, that is to say a loan applications, KYC and other documents. according to company policy, these loans should be made by creating a loan against deposits. However, our audit found that no deposits were kept by these applicants. Interestingly, Rs 60 crore was transferred to loan accounts including the premature closure of 49 company term deposits on the same day. “
“Depositors only learned about it after the scam came to light, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposing a withdrawal limit of 35,000 rupees in January last year,” the responsible.
Details of the document which were shared by a company official said: “The loan accounts were created by two people and we have yet to find out why such loan accounts were created. This included a man named Rakesh, a cashier accused of siphoning off Rs 4.48 crore by setting up fake loan accounts.
According to documents viewed by The Indian Express, Rs 90 crore of the company’s money was transferred to various bank default loan accounts, to show that bank loan collection was going well. The documents also show that the deposits of Rs 228 crore collected by the company’s depositors were never paid.
The company, in its latest report submitted to the Karnataka High Court on June 7, said term deposits that were with the company were closed prematurely and were adjusted to loan accounts by the bank in November 2019. .
The company that has jurisdiction to operate in urban Bengaluru, rural Bengaluru, Ramanagara, Chikkaballapura, Kolar, Tumakuru, Chitradurga and Davangere has operated beyond its limits. Prof. G Krishnan, former director of the bank, sold his farmland in Tamil Nadu to the company where the deputy registrar’s office showed the land had been sold for Rs 70.7 lakh but Rs 17.7 crore was been transferred from the company account to Krishnan.
Documents provided by the cooperative department show that Rs 4.48 crore was also deposited into the fake accounts created. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigation found that Rakesh C Varamballi, a BCA graduate who joined the company in 2015, had siphoned off Rs 4.48 crore by setting up fake accounts and approving himself ready. While the CID was able to track Rs 94.57 lakh which he had made, it was found that he had lost money in betting on cricket.
While the bank, on the one hand, performed well every year with very less NPAs, it was already strapped for cash with many irregularities that had yet to be revealed in the public domain. The company was formed by the same set of board members and the president. Attempting 12.5 percent annual interest on term deposits without TDS deductions, the company has become a hot spot for seniors to deposit in the company. A former Indian chief justice had also deposited money, added a source within the company.
An audit of the bank found that Rs 1,480 crore was embezzled and around Rs 890 crore, or 60%, was granted in the form of loans on 24 accounts.
