New Delhi: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed FIR against ABG Shipyard Limited, for defrauding 28 banks to the tune of Rs. 22,842 crore.

The directors of the firm Rishi Agarwal, Santhanam Muthuswamy and Ashwini Kumar have been booked in the case. The FIR was filed on the complaint of State Bank of India. As SBI’s first complaint dated 8.11.2019 missed
important details like ‘time of fraud, modus operandi’, the agency had sought clarifications on the same. SBI filed the revised fresh complaint against ABG Shipyard on 25.8.2020. CBI after examination, registered the case on 7.2.2022 and conducted searches at the premises of the accused on 12.2.2022.

The forensic audit report revealed that the accused colluded with each other and committed illegal activities including diversion of funds, misappropriation, and criminal breach of trust and for the purposes other than for the purpose for which the funds were released by bank between April 2012 to July 2017.

AGB shipyard owes Rs 2925 crore to SBI, Rs 7089 crore to ICICI bank, Rs 3634 crore to IDBI Bank, Rs 1614 crore to Bank of Baroda, Rs 1244 to PNB and Rs 1228 crore to Indian Overseas Bank, as per the complaint by SBI. The fraud could be however much bigger of above Rs. 24,000 crore.