VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 26: The power broker Prem Prakash was a banker whom the CBI had booked for committing fraud with IAS (now retired) Mahavir Prasad. Desperate to make quick money through illegal means he even dragged his widow mother Prabha Sinha into the bank scam.
The Enforcement Directorate raided his premises on Wednesday in Ranchi, Patna, Varanasi, and Sasaram in connection with a money laundering case against IAS Pooja Singhal. He is said to be well connected with the power centre during the previous government of Raghubar Das of the BJP and the current dispensation headed by Hemant Soren.
Prem Prakash was appointed to the post of assistant at the State Bank of India (SBI) on the compassionate ground after the death of his father Pramod Kumar Sinha who was a native of State Bank Colony Fazalganj at Sasaram in Rohtas district.
He was posted at the Raj Bhawan branch of the SBI in Patna when in February 2002 when Rs 26.5 Lakh was allegedly withdrawn. The SBI lodged an FIR with the Secretariat police station on March 23 against the then branch manager Bipin Bihari Pathak, Prem Prakash, Kaushlesh Ranjan, Prabha Sinha and Pankaj Prasun. Prem Prakash remained absconded for many months. The SBI requested the CBI to take up the case which lodged a regular FIR RC 8A/2005.
As per the FIR, Prem Prakash submitted a cheque of Rs 21 lakh drawn by Pankaj Prasun, an account holder in the UCO Bank’s Mukherjeenagar (Delhi) branch, in favour of Prabha on February 21, 2002. Bipin Bihari Pathak allowed it to be credited to the joint account of Prem Prakash and his mother. On the same day, Prem Prakash withdrew almost the entire amount with the help of Prabha Sinha.
The SBI authorities were shocked when the Rs 21 Lakh cheque submitted by Prem Prakash was returned unpaid from the drawee branch in Delhi. A couple of days later Bipin Bihari Pathak allowed a cheque of Rs 4.5 Lakh signed by Prem Prakash and drawn on the Canara Bank’s Pataliputra Colony branch to be credited to the account of Kaushlesh Ranjan who drew the amount. Again, the cheque of Rs 4.5 Lakh was returned unpaid from clearance.
He committed another scam to hush up fraudulent withdrawals of about Rs 25 Lakh when the bank authorities tightened nooses around him. Prem Prakash forged a letter of Mahavir Prasad requesting the Raj Bhawan branch of SBI to credit the proceeds of his five special term deposit receipts to the account of Prabha Sinha. Again, the branch manager allowed premature payment of the STDRs, and these were credited to the account of Prem Prakash and his mother. He withdrew Rs 1.5 lakh from the bank.
“The bank returned my amount when I came to know about it in March of the same year. He forged a letter and forged my signature and my wife’s. I was not even aware that he has done a forgery of documents of such a high amount. The CBI took up the case. But I don’t know what exactly happened in this case,” said Mahavir Prasad who served as DC of Dhanbad and OSD to the then Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Yadav.
In 2014, the single bench of Justice Anjana Prakash of Patna High Court dismissed his quashing petition. On being contacted, a senior CBI official at Patna said his case may be in the trial stage. “I will have to check the status of this case. It must be in the trial stage,” said the official.