CBI court fines IOB's ex-manager Rs 15 cr for cheating, jails her for 7 years

New Delhi: A CBI court has imposed one of the biggest fines of Rs 15.06 crore on a former senior manager of Indian Overseas Bank and jailed her for seven years for cheating the bank to the tune of Rs 2.14 crore, officials said on Friday.

According to the officials, Preeti Vijay Sahijwani as the senior manager of Indian Overseas Bank's (IOB's) Vastrapur branch in Ahmedabad had credited final maturity payments of Foreign Currency Non-Resident (FCNR) deposits of two accounts into two fictitious accounts without any authority letter from the depositor or the power of attorney holder.

She had then sanctioned demand loans and cash credits in fictitious accounts amounting to around Rs 1.40 crore against the security of un-surrendered deposit receipts of actual depositors, by making alterations in the amount, date, maturity value, and others, they said.

"The accused caused wrongful loss of over Rs 2 crore (approx) including interest as on July 27, 2001," a CBI spokesperson said.

On a complaint by the bank, the CBI took over the probe into the case on October 29, 2001, and filed a charge sheet on October 15, 2003. Sahijwani had fled the country and was absconding till 2012. The CBI had issued an Interpol Red Notice against her which helped the agency to locate her in Canada.

"She was detained by Canadian Immigration authorities and deported to India on January 11, 2012," a CBI Spokesperson said in a statement.

The special court in Gandhinagar convicted the former senior manager for criminal breach of trust, forgery of valuable security, using forged documents as genuine and causing wrongful loss to the bank.

The CBI spokesperson said the court imposed a fine of Rs 15 crore on the convict and ordered that the amount would go to the complainant bank. Officials said it is one of the biggest fines imposed by a special court.

"During the trial, 23 prosecution witnesses were examined and 158 documents got proved through witnesses. After the pronouncement of the judgement, Preeti Vijay Sahijwani was taken into custody," the official said.