CBI
has initiated an inquiry into cases of defaulters of big loans from
public sector banks, its chief Ranjit Sinha said on Wednesday while
emphasising that bulk of non-performing assets were connected to 30
defaulter accounts.
“A bulk of NPA is from top 30 accounts which is learnt to be running into
thousands of crores. CBI has already initiated inquiry into some of the big defaulter accounts,” Mr Sinha said.
He did not reveal the specifics of the probe as it may derail the ongoing inquiry by the agency.
Speaking
at the fifth annual conference of chief vigilance officers of Public
Sector Banks and Financial Institutions and Officers of CBI, Mr Sinha
cited number of issues which adversely affect agency’s efforts to track
and recover these assets.
Highlighting
issues which hamper CBI investigation into bank frauds, he said banks
are often reluctant to declare bad accounts as fraud despite there being
clear manifestations.
The
CBI Chief said the banks need to realise that delay in reporting of
frauds adversely affects tracking and recovery of proceeds of crimes as
the initiative is lost.
Mr Sinha
said the banks are often reluctant to
fix accountability of their staff, resulting in difference of opinion
between them and the agency regarding the role of public servants.
“In
my view there should be no reason for denial of sanction for
prosecution wherever malafide acts by delinquent officials caused huge
losses to the banks,” he said.
Mr Sinha said bank frauds involving amount above Rs 50 crore has grown almost 10 times in two years.
“Large
value frauds involving amount of Rs 50 crore and above have also
increased more than 10 folds from three cases in 2009-10 involving an
amount of Rs 404.13 crore to 45 cases involving Rs 5334.75 crore in
2013,” he said.
The
CBI Director said with the growth of economy and banking sector, amount
involved in frauds in the sector have grown substantially over the
years.
“According
to an analysis by RBI, while the number of fraud
cases has shown a decreasing trend from 24,791 in 2009-10 to 13,293 in
2012-13 that is a decline of 46.37 per cent, the amount involved has
quadrupled from 2037.81 crore to 8646 crore that is an enormous increase
of 354.27 per cent,” Mr Sinha said.
The
CBI Chief said according to government analysis non-performing assets
of the banks have risen substantially in last two years from Rs 59,924
crore in 2010 to Rs 1,17,262 crore in 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment