Two arrested for misappropriation of Religare’s fixed deposit receipts

New Delhi: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police has arrested two persons in connection with a case of misappropriation of fixed deposit receipts of Religare Finvest Limited (RFL) to the tune of around Rs 729 crore.

According to the police, the two arrested persons have been identified as Pradeep Kumar (57) and Anjani Kumar Verma (48) residents of New Delhi and Noida respectively. The arrested persons will be produced before a trial court later today.

A case was registered in the matter under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) after RFL’s Manpreet Singh Surifiled a complaint at the EOW against Malvinder Mohan Singh, Shivinder Mohan Singh, and their companies RHC Holding Ltd, Ranchem Pvt Ltd, Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd and it’s then directors and employees.

“The complaint alleged that in November 2016, RFL placed an amount of Rs 400 crores in two fixed deposits with Lakshmi Vilas Bank. These FDs were created by RFL for short term tenor with an intention to keep them free from all and any encumbrance. Thereafter, in January 2017, RFL placed an additional amount of about Rs 350 crore in another couple of FDs with the bank,” police said in an official statement on Friday.

The complaint said that these FDs were also created by RFL for short term tenor with the intention to keep them free from all and any encumbrance.

“However, on July 31, 2017, RFL received an email from LVB with the statement of accounts with respect to RFL’s current account. RFL discovered that LVB had credited the proceeds of the FDs to RFL’s current account and subsequently debited from RFL’s current account cumulative amount of over Rs 723 crore without any prior intimation to RFL,” the statement said.

“Therefore, LVB and the other accused persons had come to an understanding for onward lending of RFL’s funds. LVB would have made huge gains from such lending since it got the FDs/funds at 4.5 per cent interest rate and they had purportedly lent the money further at 10 per cent interest rate,” it added.

It said that the bank cheated RFL and misused its public shareholder money entrusted with the bank in its capacity as RFL’s banker, thus causing wrongful loss to the complainant company to the tune of Rs. 729 crores approximately.

Charge sheets have already been filed before the trial court against accused Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, who are currently in judicial custody, in the matter.

Further investigation of the case is in progress.