Two ex-bank officials convicted in 26-year-old fraud case

A special court here on Wednesday sentenced two former managers of Bank of Maharashtra to one year imprisonment in a 26-year-old loan fraud case.

Special CBI judge A S Sayyad convicted Dhairyasheel Jagtap and Mohan Shripad Phadnis, both in their seventies, under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The court sentenced the duo to one year imprisonment and later granted them bail.

While Jagtap worked as a branch manager with Bank of Maharashtra's Napean Sea Road branch between 1986 and 1988, Phadnis worked in the same capacity between 1988 and 1990, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said.

A case was registered against four companies and two of their directors in 1996 for cheating the bank. However, they were discharged from the case, the probe agency stated.

Later, four bank officials were also made accused in the case, of which two died during the course of trial, it said.

According to the CBI, companies under Jayantilal Group had allegedly conspired with the bank officials to project inflated figures of their credit worthiness and secured more loan from the bank than they were entitled to.

They obtained the loan and allegedly diverted the amount to another account for a different purpose, the CBI had alleged.