The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet against former Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) CMD Kapil Wadhawan and 74 others on Saturday in connection of defrauding 17 banks to the tune of Rs 34,000 crore. In its chargesheet, the agency has also named then director Dheeraj Wadhawan and former CEO Harshil Mehta as accused in what could be called one of the biggest bank frauds in India. The CBI officials said that an advocate, Ajay Vazirani, businessman Ajay Navandar, several chartered accountants, former executives of DHFL and other related companies have been named in the chargesheet as accused, according to PTI.

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The report further claimed that in the chargesheet, the agency has listed 18 individuals, including former chairman and managing director (CMD) Kapil Wadhawan, and 57 companies through which funds were diverted, the officials alleged. After a complaint by the Union Bank of India (UBI), which is the leader of the 17-member lender consortium that had extended over Rs 42,000-crore credit facilities to DHFL between 2010 and 2018, the CBI booked the Wadhawans and others.

According to the CBI’s allegations in its chargesheet, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, “in a criminal conspiracy with others, misrepresented and concealed facts, committed criminal breach of trust and abused public funds to cheat the consortium to the tune of Rs 34,615 crore by defaulting on loan repayments from May 2019 onwards”, PTI reported.

The CBI further alleged that the company had committed financial irregularities, diverted funds, fabricated books and round-tripped funds to “create assets for Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan” using public money. The Wadhawans are already in judicial custody in connection with previous fraud cases against them. The agency officials said that the DHFL loan accounts were declared non-performing assets at different points of time by lender banks.

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After the lender banks conducted a “special review audit”, it pointed at diversion of funds in the form of loans and advances to related and interconnected entities and individuals of DHFL and its directors. The account books showed that 66 entities having commonalities with DHFL promoters were disbursed Rs 29,100 crore against which Rs 29,849 crore remained outstanding, the CBI has alleged.

(With PTI inputs)