On Former Chief's Arrest In Asset Sale Case, SBI Says Due Process Followed
Hours after its former chairman Pratip Chaudhuri was arrested in an alleged loan related case in connection to a property, the State Bank of India (SBI) on Monday clarified that the asset was sold with “laid down process” in March 2014, much after he had retired from the services of the bank in September 2013.
Mr Chaudhuri was earlier in the day arrested from his residence in the national capital in relation to an alleged loan related case involving a hotel in Jaisalmer.
The case is related to one Godawan Group's hotel project in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer, for which it had taken a Rs 24 crore loan from SBI in 2008.
"Garh Rajwada was a hotel project in Jaisalmer, financed by the Bank in 2007. The project remained incomplete for over three years and the key promoter passed away in April 2010," SBI said in a statement.
It further said that the account slipped into a non performing asset (NPA) in June 2010 and various steps taken by the bank to complete the project did not yield results.
Subsequently as part of the bank's recovery efforts, the account dues were assigned to an asset reconstruction company (ARC) in 2014, and it was done through a laid down process of the bank's policy, the SBI statement said.
“As recovery efforts failed, approvals for sale to ARC were taken in January 2014 and the assignment to ARC was completed in March 2014. It transpires now that the borrower had initially filed an FIR with the state police against the sale of asset to ARC," the bank said.
"It appears from the copies of the proceedings now accessed by us that there have been some factual inaccuracies in the complainant's version submitted to the Honourable court,” the SBI statement further said.
"In as much as SBI was not a party to this case, there was no occasion for the views of SBI being heard as part of these proceedings. SBI would like to reiterate that all due process were followed while making the said sale to ARC. The bank has already offered its cooperation to the law enforcement and judicial authorities and will provide further information, if any that may be called for from their side," it noted further.
