NARAYANAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who is arraigned as the 12th accused in Crime No.165/CB/TSR/R/21 (Crime No.650/2021 of Irinjalakuda police station) registered for the offences punishable under Sections 406, 420, 409, 465, 468, 471, 201 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code has moved this application for his release on bail.

(2.) The petitioner has been in custody since 11.10.2021.

(3.) The gravamen of the prosecution case is as follows: This petitioner is a member of the Board of Directors of the Karuvannur Service Co-operative Bank (for short 'the Bank'). The 1st accused was the former Secretary of the Bank. The 2nd accused was the Manager and the 3rd accused, the Accountant. The 6th accused was the former accountant of the supermarket run by the Bank. The 5th accused was the commission agent of RUBCO for the Bank and the 4th accused a 'C' class member. The 7th accused was the President and accused Nos. 8 to 18 were the members of the Director Board during the period from 2016 to 22.07.2021. The accused Nos.7 to 18 colluded with accused Nos. 1 to 6 with the dishonest intention to cheat the Bank as well its depositors deliberately violating the provisions prescribed in the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act and Rules and the provisions of the bye -law of the Bank and committed forgery and misappropriated and siphoned off huge amount of the Bank. They have created fake membership form and granted more than one loan to the same person upon the mortgage of a single property lying beyond the jurisdiction of the Bank showing highly inflated market value. Properties already mortgaged with other financial institutions and even properties under attachment were taken into consideration with the intention to create fake loans to misappropriate the money. They also illegally released the mortgage of the properties before settlement of the loans violating the rules for unlawful gain. The accused have fraudulently with the intention to deceive the Bank as well as the depositors using forged documents, created fresh mortgages offering the very same properties as security, without the knowledge of the actual owners of the property who availed genuine loan from the Bank and thus misappropriated the money and cheated them. The 4th accused who is not even residing within the limits of the Bank, was allotted C class membership and 52 fake loans were granted to him and to persons in acquaintance with him without their knowledge to the tune of Rs.22.85 crores and his liability to the Bank alone as revealed, is approximately Rs. 33,28,62,817/-. Forged documents were created and huge amount was availed as loan after colluding with each other and thus committed grave malpractice and siphoned off money into their accounts and used for their personal business. The accounts pertaining to the supermarket had also been fabricated with the intention to misappropriate money. They fraudulently created documents regarding the distribution of RUBCO products, monthly deposit scheme, auction process of kuri, purchase of stocks to the super market etc. for unlawful gain and caused disappearance of evidence and thus misappropriated huge funds of the Bank. Thus by committing criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery they have gained pecuniary advantage of approximately 100 crores and caused corresponding monetary loss to the bank and its genuine customers.