RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, July 28: After 12 years of trial in a 16-year-old case of bank fraud, a special CBI court awarded five-year jail term to six people including an Allahabad Bank cashier on Thursday. The six convicts were convicted on July 26.
The six convicts are Ram Tahal Mahto, Mahadeo Prasad Mehta, Prayag Prasad Mehta, Ajay Kumar, Kuldeep Verma, and the Allahabad Bank cashier Sunil Mittal. Bank manager Dhanu Behra was also accused in the case but he died during the trial and was neither convicted nor awarded any punishment.
The case arose in 2006-07 when Ram Tahal Mahto, Mahadeo Prasad Mehta, Prayag Prasad Mehta, Ajay Kumar, and Kuldeep Verma with the connivance of bank officials formed a company M/s Bajrang Cold Storage and withdrew loan amount of Rs 2.65 crore from Hazaribagh main branch of Allahabad Bank for the construction of a cold storage at Sindoor village in the district based on the fake land paper.
After the withdrawal of the loan, not a single loan installment was paid. The loan amount rose to Rs 3.37 crore due to the accumulation of compound interest. The account was declared NPA and after all legal formalities, the matter was handed over to CBI for the probe.
The investigating agency registered a case in January 2010. In July 2011, a charge sheet was submitted against seven. The court framed charges in March 2016 and it took three and a half years to examine the witnesses. On September 17, 2019 formalities of recording of statements of the accused were completed. Finally, the conviction took place on July 26 and on Thursday the punishment was awarded.
