Skip to main content

SC says, bank fraud not just a civil dispute

The Supreme Court of India has set aside a Madras High Court judgment in the case Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank Ltd vs State. After this decision by the apex court, trial courts are now allowed to proceed with the prosecution of former directors of the bank who allegedly colluded with managers of five different firms to commit fraud against the bank.

SC says, bank fraud not just a civil dispute. According to the charge sheets in the case, the managers of the five  firms were maintaining current account with the bank since 2000, and they collectively siphoned around INR 2.51 crore from the bank with the help of the other accused, sources informed.

The fraud which was first discovered in June 2003, deployed the following modus operandi:

The accused managed to encash cheques at the bank’s Tiruppur branch despite the drawers accounts not having the requested amount. Apparently, the branch manager facilitated the transactions using the Local Bill Discounting provisions.

Later, after learning from the bank that their cheques had bounced, the accused deposited cheques with even higher amount in order to “clear the debt”.

After they were dragged to the court, the accused appealed to the High Court for quashing all criminal charges filed against them. The HC, after coming under the impression that the dispute in concern was more of a civil nature and the bank could move the debt recovery tribunal to recover the money, cleared the accused of criminal charges.

However, the SC has now set aside the HC judgment saying that the forgery was not just a breach of contractual terms, but smacked of criminality. Based on that opinion, the court allowed criminal proceedings against the accused to resume full fledgedly.

Article referred: http://www.vakilno1.com/legal-news/sc-says-bank-fraud-just-civil-dispute.html

Comments

Most viewed this month

Inherited property of childless hindu woman devolve onto heirs of her parents

In Tarabai Dagdu Nitanware vs Narayan Keru Nitanware, quashing an order passed by a joint civil judge junior division, Pune, the Bombay High Court has held that under Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act, any property inherited by a female Hindu from her father or mother, will devolve upon the heirs of her father/mother, if she dies without any children of her own, and not upon her husband. Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi was hearing a writ petition filed by relatives of one Sundarabai, who died issueless more than 45 years ago on June 18, 1962. Article referred:http://www.livelaw.in/property-inherited-female-hindu-parents-shall-devolve-upon-heirs-father-not-husband-dies-childless-bombay-hc-read-judgment/

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...