Delhi court seeks ED response on Ratul Puri's bail in Moser Baer bank fraud case

A Special Court on Friday asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file a response on the bail plea of businessman Ratul Puri in connection with Rs 354 crore Moser Baer bank fraud case.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on November 30.

In October, the ED had filed a charge-sheet in the case against Puri, who is the former executive director of Moser Baer India Limited (MBIL), his father Deepak Puri and mother Nita Puri on a complaint filed by the Central Bank of India.

The bank had accused Moser Baer and its director of defrauding the bank of Rs 354 crore. Based on the complaint, the ED had arrested Puri on August 19.

 

Besides the Puri family, others who have been booked for criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, and corruption are Sanjay Jain and Vineet Sharma.

Moser Baer was engaged in the manufacture of optical storage media like compact discs, DVDs, solid-state storage devices. It had been taking loans from various banks since 2009 and went for debt restructuring a number of times, the Central Bank of India claimed in the complaint.

When the company was unable to pay the debt, a forensic audit was done and the account was declared as a "fraud" by the bank in April earlier this year.

"MBIL has committed fraud and cheated the complainant bank thereby making a wrongful gain to themselves and a wrongful loss to the lender bank which is a custodian of public money," the complaint reads.

The bank, in its forensic audit, also found that the primary security of the bank consisted of stock of finished goods, semi-finished goods and raw material was "dishonestly and fraudulently" removed by the company and its directors in order to prevent the distribution amongst the creditor banks to pay the debt.

"The funds granted by the banks have been misused and misappropriated by MBIL and its directors for their own personal use. MBIL and its directors and promoters have also committed fraud in respect of reporting book debts, which were also one of the primary securities of the bank," it further read.

The bank claimed that the company and its directors "forged and fabricated documents to induce Central Bank of India to release funds."

"MBIL has caused unlawful loss to our bank to the tune of Rs 354.51 crore as on November 29, 2014, and interest thereon by getting unlawful gains," the complaint stated.