Retd bank officer jailed for 4 years in corruption case

NEW DELHI: A 66-year-old retired manager of Bank of Maharashtra has been sent to four years in jail in a corruption case by a special court, which termed him as

NEW DELHI: A 66-year-old retired manager of Bank of Maharashtra has been sent to four years in jail in a corruption case by a special court, which termed him as the “kingpin” of the fraud.

HT Image

The court awarded the jail term to Vinay Kumar Jain after holding him guilty for various of fences, including criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating, falsification of accounts, using as genuine forged documents under the IPC and abusing his official position by obtaining pecuniary advantage.

Special CBI judge Sanjeev Aggarwal also sentenced Praveen Kumar Gupta, proprietor of M/s Pragati Conductors and partner in M/s Kamal Enterprises to three years of imprisonment for various offences, calling him “cohort” of Jain in the crime. Gupta was granted bail for two months to file an appeal against his conviction and sentence.

“Accused number 1 (Jain) was working as Branch Manager, Mukherjee Nagar branch of Bank of Maharashtra, Delhi in a position of trust i.e. he was in fiduciary relationship with regard to the funds of the bank of which he was the custodian.

“By abusing his official position as a public servant in conspiracy with accused number 4 (Gupta) and other accused persons (who are proclaimed offenders) allowed them to enjoy the bank funds to the tune of Rs 20 crore without any sanction thereby causing loss of interest to said bank branch,” the court said, adding that interest of justice shall be met, if Jain, the “kingpin of this fraud”, is sentenced to rigorous jail.