Borrowing crores from banks, Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, a shipping company boss from Gujarat, has joined the ranks of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, and Mehul Choksi who failed to pay it back! His shipbuilding company, APG Shipyard, defrauded the government and private banks by defaulting on loans of Rs 22,842 crore.
We spoke to some economists about this. “APG Shipyard has taken a loan of Rs 22,482 crore from 28 banks like SBI, ICICI, Bank of Baroda and IDBI. In 2008, when the international economic crisis occurred, the company was told that it was unable to repay the bank loan due to the cancellation of orders received from abroad. But it was only when the company’s financial statements were scrutinized that the massive fraud was discovered.
In other words, Rishi Kamlesh Aggarwal, the chairman of APG, has falsely presented loss accounts and accumulated assets for his 98 branch companies separately. SBI Bank first complained about this in 2019. Later, all 28 banks jointly reported the scam to the CBI. After that, the CBI registered a case last February and Rishi Agarwal was arrested. Assets worth Rs 2,700 crore have also been seized.
Talking about the politics behind this financial fraud, Maharashtra State Congress Spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, “A single company committed a fraud of Rs. 22,842 crores, but no action was taken due to the compulsion of the Modi government. But, only after the opposition parties raised questions, the CBI has taken action without any other option,” he said.
After asking for an explanation of the allegation, when speaking to Muthukrishnan, the president of the South Indian branch of the BJP in Mumbai, he said, “The CBI has been investigating the non-repayment of the loan taken by the APG Shipyard Company since the beginning. Since nothing can be done in haste, they have thoroughly investigated and arrested its founder Agarwal. “Otherwise, the central government has no connection in the investigation of this case,” he said.
The loan taken is 22,842 crores… The confiscated property is only 2,700 crores… The officers are trying to break the account!