SBI fraud: 8 bank officials, Harshad Mehta's brother acquitted
A Mumbai court has acquitted nine people, including Ashwin Mehta, brother of the 1992 securities scam kingpin Harshad Mehta, in a case of duping the State Bank of India (SBI) to the tune of Rs. 105cr. Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi, in her judgment last week, which came after a whopping 26-years, said that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Ashwin was constituted attorney of Harshad Mehta
Apart from Ashwin, those acquitted are Rama Sitharaman, officer in-charge of securities division of the Mumbai-headquartered government-owned public-sector bank, and seven other officials of the bank, namely, Bhushan Raut, C Ravi Kumar, S Suresh Babu, P Muralidharan, Ashok Agarwal, Janardhan Bandhopadhyay and Shyam Sundar Gupta. Ashwin, a constituted attorney of Harshad, was also one of the stock brokers in his brother's firms.
Mehta brothers, bank officials cheated SBI Caps from 1991-92: CBI
According to CBI, the prosecuting agency, the bank's officials, in collusion with the Mehta brothers, entered into a conspiracy to cheat SBI Caps, the investment banking branch of the country's largest lender, to the tune of Rs. 105 crore in the sale and purchase transactions of securities from 1991 to 1992. SBI Caps routed all 24 transactions via Harshad and allegedly suffered a loss.
Defense argues funds transferred through SBI main branch, court accepts
The CBI claimed the fund diversion couldn't have taken place without the knowledge of the accused bank officers of security divisions. The court, however, accepted the defense arguments that the funds were diverted from the main branch of the bank, therefore, the case against security division officers couldn't be accepted. Notably, the case against prime accused Harshad was 'abated' after he died in 2001.
