Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Economic Offences Wing has booked the cooperative bank manager, excise officials, and contractors for issuing fake bank guarantees worth Rs 15 crore to obtain liquor shop tenders in Rewa, officials said on Friday.
DG, EOW Upendra Jain stated that a complaint was filed alleging that liquor contractors had obtained shop tenders by violating tendering norms. The contractors secured bank guarantees from the District Cooperative Bank Moraba in Singrauli. The then bank manager, Nagendra Singh, issued 14 bank guarantees worth Rs 15.32 crore without mortgaging any assets.
The officer informed that, according to the state excise policy, bank guarantees should be issued only by nationalized banks or private scheduled banks. However, in this case, the bank guarantee was prepared by a district cooperative bank, which is not a scheduled bank under the Reserve Bank of India.
District excise officer Anil Jain also violated norms by accepting the bank guarantee and awarding the contract. When the matter escalated and a complaint was filed, the excise officer later replaced the bank guarantees with those from scheduled banks. A three-member committee of the bank found serious irregularities committed by bank officials.
According to a report by the Chief Executive Officer of District Cooperative Bank Sidhi, only the bank directorate or staff of the sub-committee can issue guidelines. Under MP Cooperative Bank laws, a bank guarantee can be issued only after a ‘counter guarantee,’ but the bank officials violated these norms.
A case has been registered against the then bank officer Nagendra Singh, excise contractors Nripendra Singh, Ajit Singh, Upendra Singh Baghel, Aditya Pratap Singh, Vijay Bahadur Singh, and the then excise officer Anil Jain under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
