The premises of Sonear Industries Ltd and its Directors at five locations in New Delhi was searched by the Central Bureau of Investigation, following their booking in the fraud case of INR 168.73 crore at the Punjab National Bank. This information was given out by the officials of CBI on Monday.
It is to be noted how the booking had not been limited only to the company, but its directors Jitendra Kejriwal, Roop Kishore Tuli, and Mohan Kumar Jha were also booked.
Sonear Industries Ltd, which was formerly known as Donear Decor Ltd falls into the plywood manufacturing business and has two thousand dealers all across India.
In the year 2016, Sonear Industries Ltd’s account with Punjab National Bank was announced as a non-performing asset. The retrospective effect to this came from the year 2014 after the tries to bring it back to life were not fruitful as the real estate sector was in very bad shape.
A major turn to this came in the year 2019 when the account was declared as a fraud, after a forensic audit.
Apart from revealing irregularities such as the opening of this account in another bank without having a NOC from PNB, the audit also uncovered the use of other bank accounts for transferring funds to corporate entities. In addition to this, the company is also known to have entered into the cotton fabric business without informing the bank. It hasn’t registered VAT number and their sales tax as well as not informed the lender bank about their sale of assets.
Throwing some light on the details, CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said, “It was alleged that the said accused had cheated Punjab National Bank by way of diversion of bank funds, fraudulent transactions, criminal misappropriation, etc. Searches were conducted at 5 locations in Delhi at the office and residential premises of borrower company and other accused.”