(file photo)
(file photo)

New Delhi, July 6 Five months after Adigear International, which is into manufacturing of bullet-proof jackets and apparels, was barred form doing business by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the CBI has registered an FIR against the Delhi-based company for duping a bank to the tune of over ₹30 crore.

On July 4, the CBI registered an FIR on the basis of a complaint received from the erstwhile Allahabad Bank, since it merged into Indian Bank on June 27 this year, alleging that the borrower defaulted on payments leading to its account being declared NPA on April 1, 2014.

The CBI has named the company, Adigear International, its partners PN Khanna, his wife Anju Khanna, and their two sons Sanjay Khanna and Sandeep Khanna, and unknown private persons, as accused in the bank heist case.

On February 1, this year, the MoD had put Adigear International under “Restricted Procurement from Firms” list which barred them from doing any business with the armed forces

In the complaint to the CBI, the Indian Bank’s Parliament Street Branch in New Delhi stated that an internal vigilance probe revealed that since the beginning, “devolvement of letter of credits” (LCs) had been issued in favour of connected concerns such as M/s Fabric International and M/s Fabric World. In majority of the cases, the LCs were paid by overdrawing the cash credit account, the bank complaint read.

“It is also important to mention that except ₹2.60 crore, whole of the funded limit of ₹25 crore was transferred to the account of M/S Adigear International held in other banks. The firm deceived our bank by getting cheques (related to sister/connected concerns) discounted on pretext regularising the account,” Indian Bank charged in its complaint lodged to the CBI last month.

The forensic audit allegedly flagged a series of financial impropriety. In one instance, the Bank stated that Adigear requested the lender for discounting of sales bill raised on Standard Gram UdyogSansthan for ₹8.55 crore. The bank stated that it discounted these bills and credited a sum of ₹7.07 crore in the cash credit account of the party. Later the Bank said it had reason to suspect that the borrower firm did not do any business as stated but diverted the money.

“During the forensic audit, it emerged that the borrower firm utilised the letter of credit facility from the complainant bank in the name of following entities, some of the them were found to be non-existing,” the Indian Bank stated. And payments were also shown to have been credited into the alleged fictitious entities like: “Kay Pee Fabrics and Accessories (₹22.26 crore)“, “Ace Prints (₹1.59 crore)“, Fabric World Inc (₹11.55 crore)“, and “Fabric World International (₹6.90 crore)“.

The audit also pointed out that substantial amount of ₹154.55 crore is outstanding and has to recovered from firms — AN Buying Services, Integrated Defence Products Ltd, Max International, Standard Gram UdyogSansthan and Secret Lines Sourcing India — by Adigear.