₹2.83cr bank fraud: Man gets life, four others convicted

The court also convicted four others in the case, including the main accused’s wife and two bank officials, and imposed a fine of ₹3.16 crore on them..

A special court designated under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday sentenced a 38-year-old-man to life imprisonment for duping a public sector bank of ₹2.83 crore.

A special court designated under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday sentenced a 38-year-old-man to life imprisonment for duping a public sector bank of ₹2.83 crore.

The court also convicted four others in the case, including the main accused’s wife and two bank officials, and imposed a fine of ₹3.16 crore on them.

Special CBI judge, S R Tamboli, sentenced the main accused, Rajendra Patil, a Thane resident, to 14 years in jail before commencing life imprisonment. He was directed to pay a fine of ₹3.13 crore. The other accused were identified as Patil’s wife, Reshma, 32, who worked as a sales executive at a private bank and stood as his guarantor; Bandlamudi Mahipal, 61, Andhra Bank’s Ghodbunder branch manager in 2008, who helped him secure a loan; Premnath Nikumbe, 47, the then supervising officer at Thane Bharat Sahakari Bank, who helped him open a fake account; and a man called Nizamuddin Surve, 42, who helped him forge documents.

While Mahipal was sentenced to 10 years in jail, Reshma, Surve and Nikumbe were sentenced to three years. The court ordered ₹3 crore be paid as compensation to the Andhra Bank branch from the recovered fine.

According to the CBI, Patil, who used to introduce himself as the nephew of a former minister, approached the Ghodbunder branch of Andhra Bank in 2008 to avail a vehicle loan of ₹2.03 crore against 15 cars he claimed he owned and leased out to Kent Cars Private Limited.

The prosecution claimed that Patil had made bogus registration cards of the cars to show himself as the owner. The then branch manager, Mahipal, allegedly misused his position to help Patil avail the loans without verifying his documents and past business record, the CBI claimed.

CBI counsel Jitendra Kumar Sharma told the court that Patil then opened a fake account at Thane Bharat Sahakari Bank in the name of Autograph Cars Private Limited, using forged documents, to siphon money he loaned from Andhra Bank. While Nikumbe helped Patil open the account, Surve notarised the fake document of memorandum of association. He also applied for a home loan of ₹80 lakh from the Andhra Bank branch against a Thane flat.

The fraud came to light in 2010, when he approached Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank to get a loan against the same property by submitting forged documents.