Gopalakrishnan, 2 others convicted in cheating case

A CBI court today convicted former Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Bank M Gopalakrishnan and two others in an 18-year-old cheating case, causing Rs three crore 'wrongful loss' to the bank and sentenced him and another person to one year rigorous imprisonment.
CBI's Anti-Corruption Bureau in 1996 had registered a case against Gopalakrishnan, then CMD of Indian Bank, A V Shanmugasundaram, its zonal manager, K Sundaramurthy, Chief Manager of its Alwarpet branch, S Dhanasingh,Managing Director of city based Akilam Constructions Pvt, and K Anandan Pillai proprietor of Allengar Foundations, Chennai and Akilam Construction.
They were charge for hatching a criminal conspiracy between 1993 to 1995 to cheat the bank's Alwarpet Branch and sanctioned credit facilities of huge amounts to these companies without sufficient securities and by surpassing bank's guidelines and rules, a CBI release said.

Akilam Constructions applied for grant of Rs five crore secured overdraft for purchase of 200 acres in Mahabalipuram to develop and sell them as farmland in the open market.
Despite shortcomings pointed out in the loan application, Sundaramurthy forwarded the proposal to the Regional Office, recommending sanctioning of the facilities.
As per guidelines such proposal sent by a branch to the Regional office would go to Zonal Office, from where it would be forwarded to Credit Division, Central Office and only thereafter be put up to CMD.
However, Shanmugasundaram got a letter sent to Gopalakrishnan directly recommending the proposal to sanction of Rs five crore on the same day -- August 28, 1995, it said.

Gopalakrishnan conveyed his approval for sanction without verification or waiting for the original proposal to come through the credit division, it said.