CBI quizzes Rana Kapoor in Rs 466-crore scam involving Gautam Thapar

The CBI has questioned YES Bank founder and its former CEO and MD, Rana Kapoor in connection with alleged diversion of over Rs 466 crore in the bank during 2017-19 by Avantha group promoter Gautam Thapar, officials said.

Although Kapoor is not named as an accused in the CBI FIR pertaining to the case, he is co-accused with Thapar in another case related to alleged diversion of public money in YES Bank in exchange for a high-end property at an upscale neighbourhood of Delhi, they said.

The case in which Kapoor was questioned from March 25-28 was registered on a complaint by Chief Vigilance Officer of the bank, Ashish Vinod Joshi on May 27, 2021. The case was filed against Thapar, directors of Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd (OBPL) -- Raghubir Kumar Sharma, Rajendra Kumar Mangal and Tapsi Mahajan --, unidentified executives of Avantha Realty Pvt Ltd and Jhabua Power Ltd.

The CBI in its FIR has alleged that the accused indulged in criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery for diversion of public money to the tune of Rs 466.15 crore, they said.

The complaint by YES Bank, now a part of the FIR, has alleged that Jhabua Power Limited (JPL), a group concern of OBPL, entered in a operations and maintenance contract for its 600 MW power plant with its holding company Jhabua Power Investment Ltd (JPIL) for 10 years.

OBPL, part of the Avantha group, was required to pay an interest free refundable security deposit of Rs 515 crore to JPIL for which YES Bank had sanctioned a long term loan of Rs 515 crore for 10 years.

The company defaulted in payments with the account turning into a non performing asset on October 30, 2019.

During its forensic audit, the bank had found that only Rs 14.16 crore of the total Rs 514.27 crore disbursed by the bank were transferred to JPIL in its IndusInd Bank account and "ultimate end use of Rs ,500.11 crore loan fund could not be ascertained", the complaint alleged.

The inspection of JPIL accounts had shown that it had granted an advance of Rs 345.15 crore to group company Avantha Power and Infrastructure Ltd from the security money received from OBPL, but in the absence of account statements of JPIL, money trail could not be established by the auditor, it alleged.

During an internal review of bank documents, YES Bank found that the loans given to OBPL for security deposit to JPIL were used by it to clear loans of Avantha group of Thapar.