E-Paper
Ludhiana: City-based industrialist, son convicted in fraud case
The division number 8 police station had registered a case against Ludhiana-based industrialist Satvinder Pal Arora alias Pappu of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar and his son Gurkaran Singh Arora alias Shanky under sections 420, 422 and 120 B of the IPC on March 25, 2013.
The court of judicial magistrate Taranjeet Singh Simra convicted a city-based industrialist and his son for cheating and criminal conspiracy. The court slapped two years rigorous imprisonment, a fine of ₹2,000 under Section 420 of the IPC, two years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ₹2,000 under section 120B to each convict. All the sentences shall run concurrently.
The division number 8 police station had registered a case against industrialist Satvinder Pal Arora alias Pappu of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar and his son Gurkaran Singh Arora alias Shanky under sections 420, 422 and 120 B of the IPC on March 25, 2013.
However, the bank and brothers of the accused have filed separate complaints against him. The police registered the case following the statement of Neeraj Dhandh, manager at HDFC Bank, Mall Road. The police also submitted the facts of the complaint filed by his brother Ravinder Pal Singh.
In his complaint the bank manager had stated that the fraud was carried out through a well-planned conspiracy in which Satvinder Pal Singh, who held a joint bank account with three of his brothers in HDFC Bank, Mall Road, went to the bank manager, while his son was present in another branch of the bank. Both transferred the entire amount in their account through two successive transactions – one in HDFC Bank and another in State Bank of India.
Satvinder had left the manager’s room on the pretext that his mobile phone had a network problem but after a few minutes neither he responded to the calls of bank manager Neeraj Dhand nor came back and transacted the whole amount.
As per the FIR, four brothers, including the accused and three others, Inderjeet Arora, Harjeet Arora and Ravinder Pal, held a joint account in HDFC Bank and a bank loan of ₹45,55,349 (including interests) was pending against LIC policies (in name of the four brothers) submitted by the brothers as guarantee since 2005. However, after they failed to pay the interest amount despite repeated reminders from the bank, their account was frozen by the bank.
To recover their amount, the bank got their LIC policies surrendered and an amount of ₹1,35,60,709.10 was credited to their account in October 2012 and the accused, after fraud, left only 10 paisa in the joint account.
After the bank took its share and deductions, some amount close to ₹89,87,758.10 was pending which was to be distributed among the four brothers. But the accused went to the bank manager asking him to credit his share in his account and made his son wait at the HDFC branch of Kalsi Nagar and as soon as the bank manager began processing his request and unblocked the frozen account, Satvinder within minutes made transaction of ₹89,87,758 to his another account in HDFC bank and later, from that account his son forwarded it to the SBI account. He left the bank and never responded to the bank manager’s calls.
