Two gets 7-yr RI for cheating bank of Rs 1.76 cr

Two promoters of a private firm have been sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment by a special CBI court here for cheating Allahabad Bank of about Rs 1.76 lakh.
Besides them, three former employees of the bank have also been sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment in the case registered over a decade ago by the CBI.
The case was registered in 2003 on the allegations that P Srinivasalu Reddy, S Gopu, partners of M/s Naatural Stones, and K Ganesh (Gopu's brother-in-law) had conspired with the three former Allahabad Bank employees and had availed packing credit and foreign bill purchase from the bank by submitting fake or forged documents as collateral security, a CBI release issued today said.

The convicted former bank employees are M Gowthaman, manager (advance), S Sreedharan, senior manager and S K Banerjee, chief manager, who worked in Allahabad Bank's international branch at Mount Road here.
The court has sentenced Reddy and Gopu to undergo seven years rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs 2.97 crore and Rs 3.06 crore each; K Ganesh, private person to undergo three years rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs 33,000, it said.
Besides Gowthaman, Sreedharan and Banerjee have been given three years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 18,000 each for cheating Allahabad Bank to the tune of Rs 176.24 lakh, it said.

A fine of Rs 9,000 was also imposed on the firm--M/s Naatural Stones represented by Srinivasalu Reddy, the release said.