CBI files charge sheet against Rana Kapoor, Gautam Thapar in Rs 466.51 crore Yes Bank fraud

The CBI on Monday filed a charge sheet against former Chief Executive and Managing Director of Yes Bank Rana Kapoor as well as Avantha Group promoter Gautam Thapar in the Rs 466.51 crore bank fraud, officials said.

Although Kapoor was not named a suspect in the FIR registered on June 2 last year, his role in the scam surfaced during the investigation, they said.

In its charge sheet filed before the special CBI court in Mumbai, the probe agency has also named Thapar and Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd (OBPL) in the scam. Within six days of receiving a complaint from the then Chief Vigilance Officer Ashish Vinod Joshi, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed an FIR on June 2 last year against Thapar, directors of OBPL– Raghubir Kumar Sharma, Rajendra Kumar Mangal and Tapsi Mahajan –, unidentified executives of Avantha Realty Pvt Ltd and Jhabua Power Ltd.

After nearly 15 months of probe which included questioning of Yes Bank co-founder Kapoor in April this year, the agency had submitted its charge sheet before the special court, they said.

The central agency has kept the probe open to investigate larger conspiracy and role of individuals unidentified so far, they said. Kapoor is also co-accused with Thapar in another case related to alleged diversion of public money in YES Bank in exchange for a high-end property at an upscale neighbourhood of Delhi, they said. It is alleged in the case that the accused had indulged in criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery for diversion of public money to the tune of Rs 466.51 crore, they said.

The complaint by Yes Bank, now a part of the FIR, had alleged that Jhabua Power Limited (JPL), a group concern of OBPL, entered in a operations and maintenance contract for its 600 MW power plant with its holding company Jhabua Power Investment Ltd (JPIL) for 10 years.

OBPL, part of the Avantha group, was required to pay an interest free refundable security deposit of Rs 515 crore to JPIL for which Yes Bank had sanctioned a long term loan of Rs 515 crore for 10 years.

The company defaulted in payments with the account turning into a non performing asset on October 30, 2019.

During its forensic audit, the bank had found that only Rs 14.16 crore of the total Rs 514.27 crore disbursed by the bank were transferred to JPIL in its IndusInd Bank account and ”ultimate end use of Rs 500.11 crore loan fund could not be ascertained”, the complaint had alleged. The inspection of JPIL accounts had shown that it had granted an advance of Rs 345.15 crore to group company Avantha Power and Infrastructure Ltd from the security money received from OBPL, but in the absence of account statements of JPIL, money trail could not be established by the auditor, it alleged.

During an internal review of bank documents, Yes Bank had found that the loans given to OBPL for security deposit to JPIL were used by it to clear loans of Avantha group of Thapar.