As per a report published in the Times of India, pen maker Rotomac colluded with officials of Public Sector Banks for carrying out a business transaction involving importing diamond, gems and exporting iron ore and broken wheat.
These findings of the CBI come a few months after the investigative agency arrested the promoter of Rotomac – Vikram Kothari, amidst rumours of him attempting to flee the country.
The TOI report claims that these findings which are part of a CBI probe, also include the fact that this collusion happened from 2009-13 during the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government. The CBI has reportedly also found that Rotomac has defaulted over the payment of a Rs 3,000 crore loan.
It has also been claimed that the pen maker took a Rs 200 crore foreign letter of credit from Bank of Baroda in 2008 which it later modified to include the aforementioned import-export services and also heightened the credit to “several thousand crores”.
The CBI has also supposedly uncovered that the company also misused packing credit facilities for importing precious stones from a Dubai firm in 2012.
In a further indictment of the company’s dealings, the report claims that it failed to properly utilise the Rs 1000 crore export packing credit facilities it received, and allegedly diverted funds to other companies led by Kothari with the help of bank officials.
If indeed true it might mean that this is another financial scam which has reached the doorsteps of the Congress party, since the Nirav Modi fraud.
We had reported how the massive Rs 11,000 fraud committed by Nirav Modi had found a connection to the Congress party, with the BJP alleging a link between Nirav Modi and senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
As per the allegation by the BJP, one of Nirav Modi’s companies named Fire star diamond international Pvt Ltd was acquired from Advait Holdings, one of whose shareholders since 2002 is Anita Singhvi, the wife of Abhishek Singhvi.
We had also reported how P Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister had signed off on the 20:80 Gold Scheme which had benefitted 13 companies including Mehul Choksi’s firm and facilitated in the fraud. In fact, the Jewellers association had also warned the Congress government of yielding to cronies and aiding in a brewing scam through this scheme.
Besides this, it was reported that the former Finance secretary Rajiv Takru, working under the erstwhile UPA government had tried to “silence” the PNB whistleblower in 2013. To top it off, it has been alleged that Finance Minister P Chidambaram had himself signed the whistleblower’s termination letter.
