The Jaisalmer Police from Delhi has arrested the ex-SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhary for allegedly selling a hotel property at a cheaper price after declaring it in NPA.
Rs 200 Crores Property As NPA
As per the information by the police, Pratip Chaudhary was arrested for selling a property worth Rs 200 crores for Rs 25 crores by declaring it to be a Non-Performing Asset (NPA). The police informed that he was arrested from his residence in Delhi and an arrest order was issued by Chief Judicial Magistrate Court.
Chaudhary will be brought to Jaisalmer on Monday. Along with Pratip Chaudhary, arrest warrants were also issued against RK Kapur, Sasi Methadil, Tarun, Vijay Kishore Saxena, SV Venkatakrishnan, and Devendra Jain.
This property, in fact, was seized in lieu of the loan.
The police further informed that the hotel group had taken a loan of Rs 24 crores from SBI in 2008 for construction purposes. At that time, another hotel of the same group was performing smoothly. But since the group didn’t repay the loan, the SBI seized both the hotels of the group and considered them as non-performing assets. During this time, the chairman of the bank was Pratip Chaudhary.
However, the bank sold both the hotels to a company for Rs 25 crores which was much lower than the market prices. Following this, the hotel group took the matter to court.
Chaudhary Joined The Buyer Company
Soon after his retirement, Chaudhary joined the buyer company as Director. The buyer company took over the hotels in 2016 and the hotels’ market value was calculated to be Rs 160 crores in 2017. Currently, the value of these hotels is said to be Rs 200 crores.
