The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case against the billionaire Gautam Thapar, founder of Avantha Group, for allegedly defaulting the loans of ₹466 crore that he took from the YES Bank. The agency also raided across several locations including Delhi, Kolkata and Telangana, as part of their investigation process.
The case was filed after the YES Bank approached the legal course. The complainant had given a loan of ₹515 crore for ten years in 2017. The loan was given so that the operations of Avantha Group’s Jhabua Power Limited could be continued.
According to the FIR filed by the CBI, Yes Bank had given a loan to the Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd (OBPL), a subsidiary of the Avantha Group, for the continuation of the operation of a power project. However, the company started defaulting on loans and during a forensic audit it was revealed that the company had diverted the loans to repay loans of other entities.
“The account has been reported as fraud to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on February 9, 2021, with an amount of Rs. 466.51 crore… on the grounds of misrepresentation of the purpose of funding and eventual diversion of loan funds by the borrower to repay the loans of other group entities, in collusion with other group companies,” the complaint by Yes Bank’s vigilance department to the CBI said.
As per the news reports, the premier investigating agency, CBI conducted searches at around 20 places including the premises of Mr. Thapar.
Along with Mr. Thapar, 60, the agency also named entities like Raghubir Kumar Sharma, Rajendra Kumar Mangal, and their companies M/s Oyster Buildwell Pvt.Ltd, Avantha Reality Pvt.Ltd and unknown officials of Jhabua Power Ltd.
The accused and their companies took behemoth loans and due to non-payment of the loans, their accounts have been turned to NPAs or Non-Performing Assets, say sources.
The accused have been charged with cases like criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery.
However, the company’s account turned into a non-performing asset in 2019 only and from there started to default on repayments. It was later discovered that only the sum of around ₹15 crore was utilized in the power company and the end-use of the balance ₹500 crore is yet under cloud, according to an audit done by the bank.
This will be the second case to be filed against Thapar by the CBI. Earlier, he was named in a real-estate case that also involved YES Bank founder Rana Kapoor.