The CBI has booked ABG Shipyard Ltd and its then, Chairman and Managing Director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal for duping a consortium of State Bank of India (SBI) of over Rs 22,842 crore, in its greatest bank fraud case. The CBI authorities informed on Saturday.

According to a complaint by the State Bank of India, the company owes ₹ 2,925 crore to the bank, ₹ 7,089 crore to ICICI Bank, ₹ 3,634 crore to IDBI Bank, ₹ 1,614 crore to Bank of Baroda, ₹ 1,244 to PNB and ₹ 1,228 crore to IOB. Funds were used for purposes other than for which they were released by banks, the CBI said.

Other than Agarwal, the CBI has likewise named the then executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, directors Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Vimal Nevetia and one more organisation ABG International Pvt Ltd for supposed offences of criminal intrigue, cheating, the criminal break of trust and maltreatment of official position under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, they said.

"Searches were conducted on Saturday at 13 locations in the premises of accused including private company, directors at Surat, Bharuch, Mumbai, Pune etc which led to the recovery of incriminating documents," CBI said in a statement.

The bank had first filed a complaint on November 8, 2019, on which the CBI had sought some clarifications on March 12, 2020.
The bank filed a fresh complaint in August that year. After "scrutinising" for over one and a half years, the CBI acted on the complaint filing an FIR on February 7.

The forensic audit of the case uncovered that between 2012-17, the charged plotted together and did illegal operations. It is reported that the company used funds for purposes other than those given by the bank, which incorporate abuse of assets, misappropriation and criminal break of trust.

The case is the greatest instance of fraud up to this point registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
the ABGSL being a key part of the Indian boat building industry works from shipyards that are situated at Dahej and Surat in Gujarat with the ability to develop vessels to 18,000 (DWT) at Surat Shipyard and 1,20,000 (DWT) at Dahej Shipyard.

The organisation has developed over 165 vessels (counting 46 for the trade market) in the last 16 years including specific vessels like the newsprint carriers. self-releasing and stacking mass concrete transporters, floating cranes and so forth with a class endorsement of all worldwide grouping social orders like Lloyds, American Bureau of Shipping. Authority Veritas, IRS, DNV, the complaint said.

"Global crisis has impacted the shipping industry due to fall in commodity demand and prices and subsequent fall in cargo demand. The cancellation of contracts for a few ships and vessels resulted in piling up inventory. This has resulted in a paucity of working capital and caused a significant increase in the operating cycle. thereby aggravating the liquidity problem and financial problem," the complaint said.

The SBI said there was no demand for commercial vessels as the industry was going through a downturn even in 2015 which was further aggravated due to lack of defence orders making it difficult for the company to maintain repayment schedule, it said.

"The company has been referred to NCLT, Ahmedabad, by ICICI Bank for CIRP," it said.