New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has filed a criminal case against ABG Shipyard Ltd, its directors and allies for cheating a consortium of 28 banks for Rs 22,842 crore. The case is filed under the various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after investigators studied the forensic audit filed and the CBI complaint.
Sources report the ED would probe the alleged ‘diversion’ of sanctions taken by the firm, the establishment of shell companies to launder public money and the role of executives of the company and others.
The CBI in this regard had opened a lookout circular raising alert at all airports to prevent the accused from fleeing away from the country. As a part of the probe, the CBI had conducted searches at 13 locations on February 12th and reported to have recovered incriminating documents, such as a book of accounts of the accused borrower company which was scrutinized.
It is also being speculated that the case would be transferred to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office or SFIO, which works under the aegis of the corporate affairs ministry.
The largest shipyard firm in India has been booked by the CBI on February 7th after investigating the complaint lodged by SBI. SBI in 2019 had claimed the accused had used a loan taken for uninformed purposes and had given a window of one and a half year for clarification until March 2020, when it lodged a fresh complaint seeking CBI intervention.