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Lucknow, Nov 4 (IANS) In a decisive blow against banking corruption, the special CBI court (West) in Lucknow on Tuesday delivered an order convicting two retired officials of State Bank of India and a Lucknow-based infrastructure firm in a fifteen-year-old fraud that siphoned off Rs 5.7 crore from the public exchequer.
Retired deputy manager Subhash Chandra Agarwal and former desk officer Joy Chakraborty, both posted at the main branch and local head office of SBI, were sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment each and fined thirty thousand rupees.
The third convict, Adyapolo Projects Pvt Ltd, faced a corporate fine of Rs 10 lakh. Company director Kranti Kumar Singh, who masterminded the scam, escaped earthly justice as he died mid-trial.
The conspiracy began in 2009 when Singh, in a bid to make easy money for his cash-strapped company, created fake invoices and balance sheets to create three fake supplier entities: Zsoda Global Marketing, RK Traders and Sambhav Enterprises.
With these papers, he allegedly convinced Aggarwal and Chakraborty to sanction a loan of Rs 5.7 crore for the purchase of machinery.
Once the funds arrived, Singh quietly deposited every penny into his personal accounts, leaving the bank with empty promises and the promised equipment never being delivered.
On 26 March 2010, a whistleblower complaint by the Deputy General Manager of SBI reached the CBI, following which raids were conducted at its offices and residences in Lucknow. Investigators uncovered a paper trail of circular transactions, rubber-stamp approvals and missing machinery that existed only on letterhead.
By November 2011, the agency had filed an uncontested charge sheet detailing fraud, criminal conspiracy and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act.
After 312 hearings over fourteen years, Special Judge Anil Kumar Mishra found the evidence to be “overwhelming and incontrovertible”.
In a packed courtroom, the judge said officials had “betrayed the sacred trust reposed in them by millions of depositors” and turned a blind eye to glaring red flags for petty bribes.
Prosecutors revealed WhatsApp chats and handwritten notes recovered from Agarwal’s diary, sealing the collusion.
Outside the court, CBI spokesperson Reena Mitra told reporters that the verdict sends a clear message; No collar, white or khaki, is beyond the reach of the law.
The SBI regional manager promised to recover the dues by attaching the remaining properties of the company, which also included a semi-built commercial complex on VIP Road in Gomti Nagar.
–IANS
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