Ahmedabad, March 24 (IANS) A special CBI court in Ahmedabad has convicted and sentenced four accused, including two former officials of UCO Bank, to five years of Rigorous Imprisonment along with fines in two separate bank fraud cases, officials said on Tuesday.

The court on March 23 awarded the sentence to the then Senior Manager Medam Bhagavathi Prasad, then Assistant Manager Bhaskar Rameshchandra Soni, and private individuals involved in the cases.

In the first case, the court sentenced Medam Bhagavathi Prasad, Bhaskar Rameshchandra Soni, and Jayendrasinh Dahyaji Makwana, proprietor of M/s Heaven Five Enterprise, to five years’ rigorous imprisonment and imposed a total fine of Rs 1.33 crore.

The case was registered by the CBI on April 27, 2016, against the accused and others.

It was alleged that Prasad, while serving as Branch Manager of UCO Bank’s Chiloda branch in Gandhinagar, fraudulently sanctioned and disbursed cash credit limits and term loans amounting to Rs 6.43 crore on the basis of forged documents to various borrowers.

Investigations revealed that the total outstanding amount across 17 loan accounts stood at Rs 3.63 crore as of December 2015. Most of these accounts turned Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), while others were on the verge of becoming NPAs, causing significant loss to the bank. The CBI filed a chargesheet in the matter on November 17, 2017.

In the second case, the court convicted and sentenced four accused — Medam Bhagavathi Prasad, Bhaskar Rameshchandra Soni, and private individual Vanrajji Prabhtaji Solanki, proprietor of M/s Shree Vanraj Enterprise — to five years’ rigorous imprisonment along with a total fine of Rs 72 lakh.

The CBI had registered the second case on April 27, 2016, on similar allegations of fraudulent sanction and disbursal of loans based on forged documents, leading to substantial financial losses and multiple accounts turning NPAs.

After completion of the trial, the court found the accused guilty and sentenced them accordingly in both cases, the agency said.

–IANS

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