City valuer named in Rs 29 crore Tiruchy bank fraud case

The FIR registered by the Banking Security and Fraud Cell named valuer BV Ramanaa from Virugambakkam among the five suspects.

The case is linked to the bank fraud in which KS Patel & Sons, Tiruchy, the firm dealing in timber and allied business activities, had allegedly defrauded Andhra Bank’s Tiruchy branch after availing the loan in the year 2016. The loan was allegedly misused and diverted without using for the purpose for which it was given.

Names of Dinesh S Patel and Hitesh S Patel, partners of KS Patel & Sons, guarantor Shivgan K Patel along with lawyer S Vijaya also appear in the CBI FIR.

An internal investigation by the bank official found that copies of the financial statements for 2014-15 and I-T returns submitted along with application for the loan were fake, as per the CA firm.

Similarly, the bank had also found engineer valuation report, believed to have given by Ramanaa, for collateral security was also a fake one. Ramanaa claimed that he had not given any valuation report for the said collateral property. However, the CBI had added his name as the fifth accused in the FIR registered last month as the bank believed that the valuer had misrepresented the value of the collateral security and gave a wrong assessment of the mortgaged property’s value resulting in wrongful loss to the bank.

The bank in the compliant stated that legal opinion by lawyer Ms Vijaya from Tiruchy in which she said that Mr Dinesh Patel has got an absolute, clear and marketable title over the property. But, after the account became a non-performing asset in the year 2017, the bank found that the property has no clear title and enforcement of mortgage rights would be difficult.