NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre, alleging glaring inaction by central agencies CBI, ED, and SFIO -- into the alleged criminal theft and money laundering of the Rs 12,800 crores from over 27 public, government and listed banks by Amtek Auto Ltd (AAL) and its promotors, directors, beneficiaries, and key managerial personnel through an elaborate system of over 127 related parties and several 'benamidars'.
A bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat, after hearing submissions from advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, sought a reply from the Union government's Ministry of Corporate Affairs and other agencies like CBI, ED and SFIO on the plea and fixed the matter for further hearing on October 11.
The petition has been filed by advocate Jaskaran Singh Chawla through advocate Sameer Srivastava.
According to the plea, Section 7, IBC petition against Amtek was admitted on July 24, 2017, and an IRP (interim resolution professional) one Dinkar Venkatsubramanian (former E Y partner) was appointed.
IRP confirmed as RP on August 22, 2017 and engaged EY to carry out a forensic audit report.
On, March 13,2018, detailed forensic audit report was submitted to RP which disclosed overwhelming evidence confirming fraudulent transactions intended to defraud creditors. Nature of fraudulent transactions, namely, (1) undervalued transactions, (2) preferential transactions, (3) transactions defrauding creditors, and (4) extortionate credit transactions, it claimed.
He further added that forensic auditors failed to detect common benaami directors in 127 related parties which obtained fraudulent loans worth Rs. 1,358 crores. Dehadrai said RP was responsible for: (a) deliberate concealment of AAL and related parties documents to auditors, (b) deliberate failure to pursue recovery of transactions defrauding creditors.
The petitioner claimed that despite evidence confirming large scale fraud to the tune of thousands of crores, no action was taken to investigate the larger conspiracy.
Notably, the Ministry has directed SFIO investigation only against two AAL subsidiary companies, i e, Castex Technologies and Metalyst Forging but not against AAL.
The amounts of Rs 2,320 crores is being probed in Castex Technologies Ltd and Rs 3,454 crores in Metalyst Forgings, however, an amount of Rs 12,700 crores of AAL are not being investigated, it claimed.
The plea asked the court to appoint a retired judge of the Supreme Court under whose stewardship the central agencies will conduct the investigation against the promoters, beneficiaries, key-managerial personnel, benamidaars, related parties and shell entities, bankers of Amtek Auto Ltd.
