Elderly man held for role in fraudulently obtaining ₹2 crore bank loan

Delhi Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) has arrested an elderly man for his alleged connivance in fraudulently obtaining a loan of ₹2 crore from a nationalised bank in Delhi by submitting forged and fabricated property documents. The forgery had come to light in 2015 and main accused and the mastermind behind the forgery, Satish Sharma, has already been arrested by the police.

Police have identified the man arrested on Wednesday as 64-year-old Suresh Kumar Pruthi, a resident of Sonepat, Haryana.

Joint commissioner of police (EOW) OP Mishra said the forgery had come to light in 2015 when an assistant general manager of the nationalised bank, from its branch on Parliament Street, alleged that Sharma had taken a loan of ₹2 crore from the bank to purchase a school, Bramshakti Model School, in Sonepat. The loan was secured by mortgaging a property in Narender Nagar area of Sonepat as collateral, Mishra said.

“Later, it was found that Sharma has already availed of another loan of ₹4 crore from another public-sector bank in Mayapuri, Delhi, by mortgaging the same property. The fact regarding the mortgaging of the same property to the other bank was not disclosed by Sharma. On this, the bank gave a police complaint against Sharma,” Mishra said.

The officer said during investigation, it was revealed that the documents of the Narender Nagar property submitted by Sharma to the bank as security did not match with the record at the sub-registrar’s office in Sonepat. “Following years of probe, Sharma was arrested last August. Further investigation revealed that one Suresh Pruthi who originally sold that property to Sharma in 1998 has also signed forged papers of sale deed of the same property on which Sharma availed of the loan of ₹2 crore,” the joint commissioner said.

Further searches were conducted and Pruthi was also arrested on Wednesday, he said.