In connection with an ongoing investigation into an alleged loss of more than Rs 30 crore to the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has detained five people, including two retired government officials. Vivek Kumar, then the manager of RLDA, Jaswant Rai, then the branch head of the Bank of Baroda, Shahdra, and three other people — Gopal Thakur, Hitesh Karelia, and Nilesh Bhatt — have been named as the accused. The Competent Court saw all of the arrested suspects and remanded them to judicial custody.
“A case was registered on a complaint from Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), a statutory body under the Ministry of Railways against unknown public servants and unknown private persons on the allegations that RLDA had been put to a loss of Rs 31.50 Crore (approx) by unknown public servants and officials of Bank of Baroda, Vishwas Nagar Branch, New Delhi. It was alleged that RLDA had initially invested an amount of Rs 35 crore (approx) for one year in the form of Fixed Deposit (FD) at Bank of Baroda, Vishwas Nagar Branch, Shahdra, Delhi and thereafter the maturity proceeds were supposed to be re-invested, for a period of three months,” CBI officials said.
Furthermore, it was claimed that employees of the Bank of Baroda’s Vishwas Nagar Branch in Delhi conspired with other private individuals based in Mumbai, Delhi, and other cities to defraud the RLDA of approximately Rs 31.50 crore (approx), which was given to the bank for investment purposes but was instead misappropriated using fake letters and advisories that were purportedly issued by RLDA employees.