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LOCs issued against Bhushan Steel CMD, wife

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation has issued Look Out Circulars (LOC) against Sanjay Singal and wife Aarti Singal, both directors of debt-ridden Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd (BPSL), which is currently embroiled in a bank fraud case of Rs 2, 348 crore, sources here said.

The agency had registered an FIR in the case against the company and its directors earlier this month, naming the couple along with several promoters and associates of the company.

The CBI had alleged that top-level officials of BPSL hatched a criminal conspiracy with unknown public servants to divert funds from loan accounts in a Chandigarh branch of Punjab National Bank and Kolkata branches of Oriental Bank of Commerce, IDBI Bank, and UCO Bank through several shell companies "without any obvious purpose".

The Singal couple is currently in India, and the LOCs against them is intended to prevent their escape.

Moreover, it has also been alleged that BPSL was one of the companies to have paid kickbacks to companies owned and controlled by Deepak and Rajiv Kochhar, in exchange for loans from ICICI Bank, which was headed by Chanda Kochhar, Deepak's wife, at the time.

According to highly-placed sources, the Enforcement Directorate received a letter detailing these allegations sometime last month and confirmed that some of the allegations in the letter are ones the probe agency was not aware of.

As per the CBI's FIR against BPSL, ICICI Bank had sanctioned and disbursed loans of up to Rs 586.6 crore to BPSL between 2007 and 2014. Chanda Kochhar became Chairperson of the private lender in 2009.

Adding to these allegations, the CBI has accused the Delhi-based steel manufacturer of defaulting on loans of up to Rs 47, 204 crores, borrowed from around 33 banks and financial institutions between 2007 and 2014.

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