A sessions court has directed a 59-year-old wife of a former cashier of Bank of India and her co-accused - his close associate, a 74-year-old, to serve three years in prison in a 31-year-old case of defrauding the bank of Rs. 40 lakhs in 1991.
The main accused in the case was CD Mehta, the husband of the convicted woman Rajula Mehta. He had died when the trial was pending before a magistrate court. The woman’s advocate had sought leniency for her and told the court that she had only benefitted by a small amount of Rs. 1.25 lakhs out of the total amount. The court refused to show leniency and said that cases involving economic offences which corrode economic stability, are to be dealt with sternly.
While another co-accused in the case had died, Rajula and the close associate Suraj Kapoor had been convicted by an Esplanade magistrate court in 2017. The court had ordered them to serve a three-year sentence and pay fines. They had approached the sessions court against this order.
Special CBI Judge SH Gwalani said in his judgment that the trial court had rightly come to the conclusion that it was a well-planned criminal conspiracy between the deceased accused and other accused to cheat the Bank of India, Worli Naka branch.
As per the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) case, the accused had hatched a conspiracy in 1991 to cheat the bank. CD Mehta had prepared 16 bogus debit notes showing the deposit of cheques by Rajula, who was also an account holder in the bank as well as two others - one Kapoor, other, Kapoor’s son. It was on the basis of these bogus debit notes that the accounts of the accused were credited. This had happened when they never had cheques in their favour for the amounts. They had all then withdrawn credited amounts from their accounts and caused a loss of Rs. 40 lakhs to the bank.
