A special CBI court on Monday took cognizance of the chargesheet filed against the “builder baba” alias Sachin Dutta, his real estate company, two “bogus” allottees and two nationalised bank officials in a Rs 47.22 lakh loan fraud case, and issued summons to them for appearance on April 8, the next date of hearing.
In the case, the CBI had registered an FIR against Balaji Hi-Tech Constructions, its directors Dutta and his wife, and four others — two officials of Punjab National Bank and two “bogus” allottees, Harpreet Singh Saigal and Harjeet Singh Saigal — on the basis of a written complaint by the chief manager of PNB’s Vasundhra branch.
Dutta’s construction company had constructed a multi-storey residential apartment at Crossings Republik — Fosters Height. This project was approved by the PNB for sanctioning housing loans to allottees. Dutta allegedly connived with the allottees and cheated the bank. He issued more than one allotment letter for the same flat and allegedly swindled a huge amount of money in the name of house loans.
In the current case, accused Harpreet Singh Saigal and Harjeet Singh Saigal conspired with Dutta and got two loans worth Rs 47.22 lakh. The flats on the 16th floor for which the allotment letters were issued by the builder were neither approved for construction nor they were actually constructed. The two allottees had separately applied for housing loans which were processed and recommended by Reetu Wadhwa, PNB manager, and were sanctioned by Kulbir Singh Sheoran, senior manager at PNB’s Vasundhra branch. A sanction for prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the two bank officials was sought from the competent authority at PNB by the CBI, but the same was declined.
Accordingly, CBI filed a chargesheet against the two allottees, Dutta and his firm. But for the reason that their sanction was declined to prosecute the bank officials, the prosecution had kept the names of the bank officials in a column, but did not chargesheet them.
CBI’s special judicial magistrate Shivank Singh, however, observed that in the present case it was because of the very lapses shown by the bank officials that the accused were able to commit the alleged fraud.
The court stated that the bank officials prima facie committed the offences of criminal conspiracy and under IPC Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), and summoned them along with the others on April 8.
