Central Vigilance Commission has referred cases of Winsome Group, Biotor to CBI: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: CBI has been asked to investigate Winsome Group of Companies for default of Rs 6,000 crore loan from lenders like Punjab National Bank.

Besides, CBI has also been asked to probe Rs 1,500 crore default by Biotor Industries Ltd.

"The Central Vigilance Commission ( CVC) has not conducted any vigilance inquiries directly into any of biggest loan defaults," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"However, CVC has referred the case of Winsome Group of Companies (formerly Suraj Diamonds) and Biotor Industries Ltd to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for conducting investigation," he said.

The CBI is looking into case of cheating and fraud against directors of Biotor Industries, manufacturer of castor oil, for allegedly submitting forged documents to three banks -- Bank of Maharashtra, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Central Bank of India.

The Finance Minister said the banks were advised by RBI on September 14, 2012 that they should review their existing Information Technology (IT) and Management information systems (MIS) framework and put in place a robust MIS mechanism for early detection of signs of distress at individual account level as well as at segment level (asset class, industry, geographic, size, etc).

"Such early warning signals should be used for putting in place an effective preventive asset quality management framework, for preserving the economic value of those entities in all segments," he said.

"The banks' IT and MIS system should be robust and able to generate reliable and quality information with regards to their asset quality for effective decision making," he added.

Jaitely said there should be no inconsistencies between information furnished under regulatory or statutory reporting and the banks' own MIS reporting.

Banks were also advised to have system generated segment- wise information on non-performing assets and restructured assets, he said, adding that as such the process of NPA identification and reporting by the system has been put in place.

In a separate response, Jaitley said the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the public sector banks (PSBs) on September 30, 2014 stood at Rs 2,43,043 crore.

PSBs have filed 5,501 cases of wilful default as of March 31, 2014. The amount involved in such cases are to the tune of Rs 35,712.92 crore, he said.

As per RBI master circular on wilful defaulters, action, including punitive action, is initiated against such wilful defaulters, he said.

"In order to prevent the access to the capital markets by the wilful defaulters, a copy of the list of wilful defaulters (non-suit filed accounts) and list of wilful defaulters (suit filed accounts) are forwarded to Sebi by RBI and Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd respectively," he said.