CBI raid on Corporate Power Ltd promoters, directors for bank fraud of Rs 4,037.87 crore
Special Correspondent :
The company is promoted by Nagpur-based Abhijeet Group owned by Manoj Jayaswal and others
AFTER registering a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, criminal misconduct and corruption against Corporate Power Limited, Kolkata, causing losses of Rs 4,037.87 crore to the consortium of banks led by Union Bank of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Friday, conducted searches at the office and residential premises of its accused directors and promoters Manoj Jayaswal, Abhishek Jayaswal, Abhijeet Jayaswal, Munnan Kumar Jaiswal and Arun Kumar Shrivastava in the city. The CBI also conducted simultaneous raids at 14 other places, including the residences and offices of other accused directors of Abhijeet Group-promoted Corporate Power Limited -- Rajiv Kumar, Bishal Jaiswal, P N Krishnan, Rajeev Goyal, S N Gaikwad, Prem Prakash Sharma and Arun Gupta -- at Mumbai, Ranchi, Kolkata, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, and Visakhapatnam which led to recovery of several incriminating documents and articles. On December 20, the country’s premier investigation agency had registered a case in Delhi under Sections 120-B, 420, 468, 471 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Sections 13(2), read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, following a complaint lodged by T Deena Dayal, Deputy General Manager, Stress Asset Management Branch, Union Bank of India, Mumbai, against Corporate Power Limited, its promoters and directors, unknown public servants and private persons on the allegations of bank fraud of Rs 4,037.87 crore (approximately) to the consortium of 20 banks.
The Union Bank of India, the lead bank, declared the account as NPA on September 30, 2013. Subsequently, the other member consortium banks also classified the said account as NPA. The accounts of the said borrower company was declared fraud on October 25, 2019. It was further alleged that between 2009 and 2013, Corporate Power Limited, the borrowers, had submitted manipulated project cost statements and also diverted the bank funds. It was also alleged that the trade receivables mainly including transactions to related parties and funds were diverted to web of various companies who were dummy accounts, accordingly the borrower was able to siphon off the funds.
Several companies of Abhijeet Group and some of its directors, including Manoj Jayaswal, are already facing CBI probes in connection with coal scam cases and have been chargesheeted as well. Corporate Power Limited, initially named Chitarpur Coal and Power Ltd, had envisaged setting up of a 540 MW power plant in Latehar district of Jharkhand in the configuration of 4 x 135 MW at a cost of Rs 2,900 crore which was to be funded by way of equity contribution of Rs 725 crore, senior debt of Rs 2,030 crore and subordinate debt of Rs 145 crore at a debt equity ration of 3:1. Initially, the company had appointed SEPCO-I as its Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor for the project. In view of non-availability of visa for Chinese workmen, the company decided to cancel the contract and offer the contract to Abhijeet Infra Limited. The Boiler Turbine and Generator project was awarded to BHEL. The coal blocks allotted to Corporate Ispat Alloys Limited was cancelled in 2014, which led to non-availability of supply of raw material to Corporate Power Limited.
Originally, land of 768.45 acre was to be acquired, but the actual acquisition was 327.55 acre. The company had given three major EPC contracts to Abhijeet Projects Limited whose name changed to Pathbreaking Projects Limited and the said company is under liquidation. The Union Bank, in its complaint, has alleged that the accused promoters and directors of the company cheated the bank with “criminal intent” to make a wrongful gain for themselves. They allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy disbursing amounts of working capital from a bank to a web of various companies that were related party companies. The funds were siphoned off to related companies shown as creditors in the account books. The searches in Nagpur were being conducted by a team from CBI officers from Delhi.