Loan fraud: Bank manager convicted after 24-year trial

New Delhi: After a nearly 24-year trial, a special court has convicted a former Punjab National Bank manager and three private persons in a loan fraud case and sentenced them to five years rigorous imprisonment, a CBI official said on Tuesday. The Tis Hazari court in its recent order also imposed fines ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh on Charanjeet Arora, PNB manager in 1992 when the case was registered, as well as Sushil Kumar Gupta, Narendra Kumar Gupta and Manoj Kumar Gupta, CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said.

The CBI had registered the case following allegations that Sushil Kumar Gupta, then director of Pankaj Finance and Leasing Limited, and Arora and the other accused entered into a criminal conspiracy. In 1994, the agency filed a charge sheet in the special CBI court where the case has been going on since. The CBI found that the accused enjoyed a credit of Rs 2 crore from the New Bank of India (which later merged with PNB) branch in Connaught Place and Rs 25 lakh from the Corporation Bank in Karol Bagh.