New Delhi, Apr 6 (DHNS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted raids on the premises of the promoters of stock market listed Diamond Power Infrastructure Limited (DPIL) in a case of defrauding various banks of Rs 2,654.40 crore in collusion with some senior bank officials.

The searches were held at the residences of the promoters of the company, two of their factories and corporate office in Vadodara.

The CBI, in its FIR filed late last month, had named founder of the company Suresh Narain Bhatnagar, its managing director Amit Bhatnagar, joint MD Sumit Bhatnagar and unkown public servants of various banks for criminal conspiracy, cheating banks, misappropriating public funds by falsifying accounts, creating false documents, forgery of records and knowingly using such forged records as genuine.

Affected banks

CBI in its FIR stated that promoters of Diamond Power fraudulently availed credit facilities from a consortium of 11 banks (public and private sector) since 2008, leaving an outstanding debit of Rs 2,654.40 crore as on June 29, 2016. The firm is also said to have submitted false stock statements to utilise cash credit limits and obtain large number of letters of credit that it dishonoured at a later stage. The company is also said to have falsified its earnings and turnover figures to obtain higher line of credits, this despite the fact that it was on RBI's Defaulters List and ECGC Caution List.

Among the banks that have exposure to Diamond Power are Bank of India (Rs 670.51 crore); Bank of Baroda (Rs 348.99 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 279.46 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 255.32 crore).