New Delhi: In its first search operation in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out raids Thursday at nine locations in Port Blair in its probe into alleged financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 200 crore at a cooperative bank.
The searched premises include the residence of Congress leader and former Lok Sabha MP Kuldeep Rai Sharma, who is a prime accused in the case. The ED also raided Sharma’s flat in Kolkata.
Sharma, the vice-chairperson of the Andaman and Nicobar State Cooperative (ANSC) Bank, had lost in the last year’s general elections. He had resigned from the post before the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested him on 18 July in the same case.
ED’s money laundering case stems from a case of the UT police that booked Sharma, bank’s managing director A. Arulandhu, and 18 others under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, factor, broker, attorney, or agent), 420 (cheating), 463 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable securities), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC) in May.
The ANSCB case
The case started unfolding when the deputy registrar of cooperative societies approached the UT police, complaining of gross violations by the ANSC management in sanctioning loans.
These alleged irregularities—unearthed during an inquiry instituted by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies—involved sanction of loans to firms with weak financial records or shell companies having no business activities.
“Some of these loan accounts turned out to be Non-Performing Assets (NPA), while others are most likely to turn out the same way because they are loans granted to shell companies,” an official aware of the case details told ThePrint.
Based on complaints from the co-operative societies, the Andaman and Nicobar CID booked Sharma, former chairman Bhagat Singh, and 18 other bank officials for irregularities in loan sanctioning.
Sources in the ED said that the investigation so far revealed that Rs 200 crore were sanctioned as loans from the bank, which was eventually transferred to Sharma through shell companies. Fifteen of those shell companies have been investigated, so far.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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