CVC re-appoints T M Bhasin as chairman of Advisory Board for Banking Frauds

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Thursday re-appointed T M Bhasin as chairman of the Advisory Board for Banking and Financial Frauds (ABBFF), a panel constituted to examine bank frauds of over Rs 50 crore and recommend action.

The re-appointment of Bhasin is with effect from August 21, for a further period of two years, as per the circular issued by CVC.

Bhasin, a veteran banker, served as vigilance commissioner in the CVC for four years from June 2015 to June 2019. Prior to vigilance commissioner, he was chairman and managing director of Chennai-based Indian Bank for more than five years.

Other members of the said ABBFF will be Madhusudan Prasad, former secretary of Ministry of Urban Development; D K Pathak, former director-general of BSF; and David Rasquinha, former managing director of EXIM Bank.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the industry captains in August 2019, had reassured the corporates that all steps would be taken to spur growth of the economy. For this purpose, all bonafide credit decisions of the bankers would be protected and there would not be any witch-hunting, taking the benefit of hind-sight, Modi had added.

The CVC, in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), thereafter constituted the ABBFF comprising of four members on August 21, 2019, for an initial term of two years.

The ABBFF, after due process of consultation with CVC, CBI, RBI, and Department of Financial Services, framed the standard operating procedure (SOP) and functioned efficiently as a "Safety Valve" to examine the gravity of lapses or accountability, if any, for general managers and above, in the fraud cases of Rs 50 crore and more, referred to it by the public sector banks (PSBs).

There were suggestions made by the chief vigilance officers (CVOs) and the managements of the PSBs and public financial institutions (PFIs) to expand the scope of ABBFF and cover examination of accountability for all levels of officials.

As such, in its new formation, the scope of work of the ABBFF has further been expanded to comprehensively examine the staff accountability for all levels of the officials or whole-time directors (WTD) in PSBs, in the fraud cases of Rs 50 crore and above.

Lenders would refer all large fraud cases above Rs 50 crore to the board and on receipt of its recommendation or advice, the bank concerned would take further action in such matter, the CVC circular said.

"The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may also refer any case or matter to the board where it has any issue or difficulty or in technical matters with the PSB and PFI concerned," it said.