FIR against realty firms, arrests likely, says CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is likely to register an FIR against some realty firms for allegedly seeking favours in the kickbacks-for-loans scam involving several nationalised banks and LIC Housing Finance.

Some more arrests are also in the offing.

According to senior CBI officials, these firms benefited from fraudulently securing loans worth several hundred crores from the banks.

"During our investigation, we found that these realty companies got big loans sanctioned by bribing senior bank officials," said a senior CBI official.

A case will be registered after the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the CBI submits the investigation report to the agency's director.

Officials said that once a case is registered, the owners of the firms involved will be called in for questioning and their statements will be recorded. Some arrests are also likely, they said.

A top executive of a leading city-based realty firm allegedly played the role of a facilitator and helped these firms get loans from the public sector banks.
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All the documents, including a final report, have been sent to the CBI headquarters in Delhi for approval.

Previous arrests

The CBI had arrested LIC Housing Finance CEO Ramchandra Nair, LIC's Secretary (Investment) Naresh Chopra, Bank of India's General Manager R N Tayal, Central Bank of India's Director Maninder Singh Johar and Punjab National Bank's Deputy Director Venkoba Gujjal in connection with the case in November.

The agency had also arrested Rajesh Sharma, chairman and managing director of city-based firm Money Matters and two of his employees Sanjay Sharma and Suresh Gattani.

According to the CBI, the LIC and bank officials colluded with Money Matters to sanction large loans to housing firms by overriding mandatory conditions for such approvals. CBI officials said the two employees were collecting confidential business information from financial institutions and passing it on to their rivals.