Former Indian Bank's CMD sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment

On completion of trial, M Gopalakrishnan and Sai Jagannathan were convicted and sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment

The Principal Special Judge for CBI Cases today convicted M Gopalakrishnan, former Chairman & Managing Director and five officials of Indian Bank and four private persons in a bank fraud case.

The persons include M Varadarajulu and M V Raja of MVR Group.
 
The Central Bureau of investigation, Chennai, registered and investigated cases against Gopalakrishnan, the then officials of Indian Bank, namely N Kumarasamy, Credit Monitoring Officer of Zonal Office, V N Balakrishnann Regional Manager (South), Srinivasa Raghavan, Sr Manager (Credit), Regional Office, A R Arunachalam, Chief Manager, Nandanam Branch, P Vasantha Rajan and S Jayaraman, Chief Managers, Saidapet Branch, Solaiappan, (Approver), Zonal Manager, Chennai M  Varadarajulu @ M V Raja, Principal Advisor of all companies under the MVR group, Venky Raman (Approver), CMD of Anderson Industries International Ltd, V Krishna Kumar, G Sambasivam,  C S Usha Devi, Directors of Anderson Industries International Ltd, K Sai Jagannathan, Director of Sathyam Chemicals Pvt Ltd, Anderson Industries International Ltd and Sathyam Chemicals Pvt Ltd.

During the year 1995, the above said accused persons cheated Indian Bank in the sanction of Letter of Credit facility to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore each in favour of Anderson Industries International Ltd and Sathyam Chemicals Pvt Ltd. Both were sister concerns of MVR Group of companies of M V Varadarajulu @ M V Raja for taking delivery of the cashew nuts which were already imported in the name of Maxwell Exim Private Ltd and MVR Industries Ltd, respectively .

The LC facilities were sanctioned by  Gopalakrishnan on September 30, 1995, without the receipt of regular proposals of the respective branches of Indian Bank at Nandanam and Saidapet and only on the basis of request letters, without any reports on the pre-sanction assessments, credit worthiness, security aspects and source of repayment.

The LCs were sanctioned at the instance of Gopalakrishnan himself, deliberately to favour the accused companies to circumvent the bottleneck that his financial sanctioning power was to end on September 30, 1995.

The LCs were opened not for importing cashew nuts, but for taking delivery of the cashew nuts that had already arrived at Tuticorin Port, with mounting arrears of demurrage much before the opening of LCs. Both the companies could not repay the dues to the bank due to this fraud. Indian Bank sufferered a loss of Rs 4,97,49,353.
 
After investigation of the case charge sheet was filed by CBI against the accused persons before Principal Special Judge Court for CBI Cases, Chennai.

Usha Devi was absconding and not available for trial and case against her is still pending. During trial Jayaraman expired and charges against him abated.

On completion of trial, M Gopalakrishnan and Sai Jagannathan were convicted and sentenced to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment, Kumarasamy, A R Arunachalam, Sambasivam, M V Varadarajulu and Krishna Kumar were sentenced to undergo two years of RI and Balakrishnan, Srinivasa Raghabvan and Vasantha Rahjan were sentenced to under one year of RI. A total fine of Rs 1,35,000 has also been imposed on them.