CBI books Abhijit Group for defrauding banks of Rs 4,037 crore

A case has been registered by the CBI against Abhijeet Group promoted company Corporate Power Limited and its directors for alleged bank fraud of Rs 4,000 crore.

New Delhi: The CBI has registered a case against Abhijeet Group promoted company Corporate Power Limited and its directors for alleged bank fraud of Rs 4,000 crore, officials said on Friday. CBI officials conducted searches in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh as well as Kolkata, Mumbai, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, Nagpur, Ranchi and other cities on Thursday.

Abhijit Group has set up a company (SPV) named Corporate Power Limited with headquarters in Kolkata to set up a power plant in the Latehar district of Jharkhand. A consortium of 20 banks lent to it. Union Bank of India complained to the CBI that the company had cheated the respective banks to the tune of Rs 4,037.87 crore.

Many companies belonging to this group and their directors are already facing CBI investigations in coal scam cases. It is reported that Chitarpur Coal and Power Limited changed its name to Corporate Power Limited and set up a 540 MW power plant in Jharkhand at a cost of Rs 2,900 crore and diverted the funds with forged documents. The names of Manoj Jaiswal, Abhishek Jaiswal, Abhijit Jaishwal, Rajiv Kumar, Bishal Jaishwal, Munna Kumar Jaiswal, Krishnan, Rajeev Goyal, Arun Kumar Srivastava, SN Gaikwad, Prem Prakash Sharma, Arun Gupta and others have been included in the FIR of the CBI officials.