In Canara Bank's 515 Crore Fraud, Businessman Once Close To Mamata Banerjee Raided

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a FIR against four Kolkata-based people for defrauding nine banks of Rs 515.15 crore, and unknown bank officials. The FIR was filed on the basis of a complaint by Canara Bank and nine other member banks of a consortium for fraud that took place over the period 2012-2013. The FIR has been filed for cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and misconduct by public servants.

At least one of the four people named in the FIR, Shivaji Panja, was known to be close to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee when she was campaigning for the 2011 assembly elections in which she got a resounding victory.  He was on stage with her at public rallies, on chopper flights and even produced promos for the party which said "badla na, badal chai (We don't want revenge, we want change)". 

He, however, has not been seen in her company in recent times.

The premises of the company RP Info Systems in Kolkata are reportedly being searched. 

The three persons named - Shivaji Panja, Kaustav Chatterjee and Vinay Bafna - are directors in that company. The fourth person, Debnath Pal, is vice president Finance. The company was apparently in the business of "manufacturing and trading of desktops and laptops across India under the brand name 'Chirag' and servicing of computers, networking, integration and other hardware related products." 

The company has failed and neglected to pay the dues of the consortium banks; the loan accounts became irregular and classified as non-performing assets or NPAs. 

The banks later came to know that the company had availed bank finance by submitting fabricated debtors/ receivables/inflated stock statements. During inspection of one of its manufacturing unit in 2013, there appeared to be a shortage of stocks and other irregularities.