MUMBAI: Three senior executives of the Percept Group, organiser of the Sunburn music festival, have been booked in connection with the New India Cooperative Bank fraud case for alleged loan irregularities and providing kickbacks to senior bank officials.
All three individuals have been named in a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police investigating irregularities in loans sanctioned by the bank.
Police said the Percept Group, a prominent entertainment, media and communications conglomerate, had taken a ₹77-crore loan from New India Cooperative Bank, of which ₹18.56 crore was waived by senior bank officials also named in the FIR. Directors of the scheduled bank accepted ₹6.37 crore in kickbacks for declaring the loan as a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) and waiving ₹18.56 crore on the principal sum as well as on interest due.
According to the EOW, the loan had been sanctioned to Percept without due diligence and the offence had been committed between September 2014 and October 2023.
Police said that while investigating bad loans extended by the bank, they found documents in Bhoan’s home – he was arrested several months ago – and the trail eventually led to the Percept Group.
The New India Cooperative Bank fraud surfaced in February, when a surprise audit by the Reserve Bank of India revealed that ₹122 crore had been spirited away from the bank’s cash reserves. The EOW has since registered several FIRs, including the one implicating the Percept Group, while uncovering a complex web of financial irregularities committed by the bank.
This FIR, registered at the Dadar police station on Wednesday, names Harindra Pal Singh, founder and managing director of the Percept Group; two senior executives of Percept, Manoj Kumar Patra and Suket Kumar Patel; unnamed directors of the group; Hiren Bhanu and his wife Gauri, former vice-chairperson of the bank; Ranjit Bhanu, Hiren’s father, the now deceased founder of the bank and former MLA from Colaba; Abhimanyu Bhoan, former CEO of the bank; and two senior bank executives, retired IAS officer Satish Chander and Damyanati Salunkhe.
Explaining how the kickbacks were paid to the New India Cooperative Bank officials, police said Hiren Bhanu, Bhoan, and Patel fabricated bills in the name of a UK-based shell company floated by Bhanu, and charged those sums, collectively amounting to ₹6.37 crore, to Percept.
“We have registered offences under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants, bankers, merchants, brokers, attorneys or agents), 418 (cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may ensue to a person whose interest offender is bound to protect) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),” said the police officer.