DPIL bank defraud case: CBI gets remand of accused trio till April 27

Ahmedabad:

A special CBI court here today allowed 9 days remand (till April 27) of the three accused of Rs 2654 crores bank loan defraud case; promoter of Vadodara based electric equipment manufacturing company Diamond Power Infrastructure Ltd (DPIL) Suresh Bhatnagar and his two director sons Amit and Sumit Bhatnagar who were arrested from Udaipur last night.

CBI produced them in the spl CBI court in Ahmedabad seeking 14 days remand for further interrogation and investigation in the sensational case. The court however allowed only 9 days remand to the central agency.

The trio was brought to Gujarat late last night after their arrest from Paras Mahal hotel in Udaipur of neighbouring Rajasthan during joint operation by the CBI and Gujarat ATS.

A CBI official today said that the trio were hiding in the hotel and were traced on the basis of technical surveillance including call monitoring by the ATS. They were first brought to the ATS headquarter and after completion of formalities they were handed over to CBI and were went under primary interrogation at its office in capital Gandhinagar.

After grant of remand by the court they would be taken to Vadodara for detailed investigation.

Meanwhile a statement by the central agency said, ‘ CBI has arrested Suresh Narain Bhatnagar, Amit Bhatnagar & Sumit Bhatnagar, the Promoters & Directors of M/s. Diamond Power Infrastructure Ltd, Vadodara in an ongoing investigation of a case. CBI registered the case against the said accused and others on the allegations of cheating the Banks to the tune of Rs. 2654.40 Crore (approx) by falsification of accounts, creation of false documents, forgery of records etc..”

Notably, CBI had also conducted raids in Vadodara yesterday in search of the trio. The trio had gone underground after the filing of the case by CBI and rumours about the possibility of their living the country were doing the rounds.

The Income Tax department had after 3 day long raids on the residences and other properties the 3 accused of cheating a consortium of 11 banks and 8 other financial companies to the tune of Rs 2,654 crore, in Vadodara had on April 13 seized various incriminating documents, luxury vehicles, cash worth around 5 lakhs, jewelry and other valuables worth over 44 lakhs and sealed over half a dozen of their bank accounts earlier last week.

Notably, a special CBI court had on April 10 rejected the anticipatory bail plea of the trio. The CBI had also approached the court yesterday to declare them absconders.

ED and CBI have also filed cases against them and had conducted raids too. The first raid of CBI was conducted on April 5 in Vadodara while the ED raids happened a day later.

DeshGujarat