Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, whose nephew Ratul Puri has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged Rs 354 crore bank fraud case, said he had no connection with Puri’s business.
“I have no connection with the business they are doing. But it appears to be purely a mala fide action. I believe and have full faith that the court will take a corrective stand in this case,” Nath said on Tuesday.
Puri, former executive director of digital data storage company Moser Baer, is being investigated by three main central probe agencies — the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the CBI and the Income Tax department.
The ED officials said Puri was placed under arrest under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) late Monday night.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Moser Baer called Puri’s arrest unfortunate. “The arrest by Enforcement Directorate is unfortunate. Moser Baer had operated in accordance with all legal compliances and this case now, when Moser Baer is in National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), is motivated,” it said.
Besides Ratul and the company, his father and Managing Director Deepak Puri, Directors Nita Puri (Ratul's mother and Kamal Nath's sister), Sanjay Jain and Vineet Sharma were also been booked by the agency for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and corruption.
Ratul had resigned from the post of executive director in 2012, while his parents continue to be on the board, the bank said in a statement.
The company is involved in the manufacture of optical storage media like compact discs, DVDs, solid state storage devices. It was taking loans from various banks since 2009 and went for debt restructuring a number of times, the bank has alleged in the complaint which is now part of the CBI FIR.
When it was unable to pay the debt, a forensic audit was done and the account was declared as "fraud" by the Central Bank of India on April 20, 2019, it has alleged.
"...The MBIL has committed fraud and cheated the complainant bank thereby making a wrongful gain to themselves and a wrongful loss to the lender bank which is a custodian of public money," the complaint to the CBI said.
Primary security of the bank consisting of stock of finished goods. semi-finished goods and raw material have also been dishonestly and fraudulently removed by the company and its directors in order to prevent the distribution amongst the creditor banks to satisfy the debt, the bank has alleged.
"The funds granted by the banks have been misused and misappropriated by MBIL and its directors for their own personal use, MBIL and its Directors and promoters have also committed fraud in respect of reporting book debts, which were also one of the primary securities of the bank," it said.
The bank claimed that the company and its directors forged and fabricated documents to induce Central Bank of India to release funds, it said.
"MBIL has cause unlawful loss to our bank to the tune of Rs 354.51 crore as on November 29, 2014 and interest thereon by getting unlawful gains," the complaint said.
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