Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman defends delay in filing complaint in ABG Shipyard case
New Delhi:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday defended the five years taken by Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard to file the first fraud complaint in a loan default of Rs 22,842, saying the time taken to detect the fraud was less than usual.
He said the loans were given under the Congress-led UPA regime and the account became a non-performing asset (NPA) in November 2013 and the loan was restructured by all lenders in March 2014, but not again. could be taken.
The opposition Congress has accused those in the highest positions of power in the Narendra Modi government of collusion, collusion and collusion in what they described as “India’s biggest bank fraud” – Rs 22,842 crore by Nirav Modi in the Rs 14,000 crore PNB scam is greater than. and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
Stating that a bank account follows a certain procedure for declaring fraud, Ms Sitharaman said it takes around 52-54 months for banks to complete the intensive work before taking a decision.
“In this particular case (ABG Shipyard) … I must say from credit to banks, they have normally taken less than the average time to detect this type of fraud … Normally, it takes I said 56 months and belatedly, it takes very little time to detect such things,” he said after his traditional post-Budget address to RBI board members here.
State Bank of India (SBI) in a statement on Sunday said that the loan given to ABG Shipyard became NPA on November 30, 2013, but after a failed loan restructuring, it was “classified as NPA in July 2016″. Was gone. November 30, 2013.” The Congress has questioned why the government took five years to register an FIR in connection with the alleged fraud of 28 banks following the liquidation proceedings of ABG Shipyard.
According to SBI, the first complaint was filed with the CBI in November 2019 and “a new and comprehensive second complaint was filed in December 2020.” E&Y was appointed as a forensic auditor by the lenders in April 2018 and submitted its report in January 2019. The E&Y report was placed before the fraud detection committee of 18 lenders in 2019. Fraud has been mainly attributed to diversion of funds, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust. ,
“I am sitting in the RBI premises, so I do not want to talk too much politics, but I am sorry that the biggest ‘scam’ noise is coming in the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Absolutely not. It was given a loan Long before 2013 and by 2013 it had become NPA too. So people dig holes in which they themselves fall.”
“They made noise, didn’t realize that it was all there then (UPA regime) and we have taken less time to act on it…” Sitharaman said.
Talking about the health of the banking sector, the Finance Minister said that it has improved and all public sector banks have performed well.
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