Nationwide raids on CRB premises

NEW DELHI, June 4: In a major crackdown, the CBI today conducted simultaneous raids at offices of CRB Capital Markets Limited and residence...

NEW DELHI, June 4: In a major crackdown, the CBI today conducted simultaneous raids at offices of CRB Capital Markets Limited and residences of its officials across the country even as it intensified manhunt for the company chairman, C R Bhansali, in connection with its probe into Rs 1200-crore financial scam.

Agency sources said the raids were conducted at 16 places in Mumbai, two in Calcutta, several places in Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Jhunjhunu and Surajgarh in Rajasthan.

The raids, which started this morning, were still continuing, they said.The bank accounts of Bhansali, a resident of Surajgarh who is suspected to have fled to Hong Kong, have already been frozen along with those of his wife’s and the group’s.

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Meanwhile, the CBI director, Joginder Singh, met Prime Minister I K Gujral, in connection with the scam, official sources said.

The PM, who had assured to hold a meeting with concerned authorities last week in Mumbai, today had three separate meetings with officials and political parties in this regard. Gujral first met the Finance ministry officials to take stock of the situation followed by a meeting with a three-member BJP delegation and the CBI director.

The CPI MP, Gurudas Dasgupta, has already demanded a probe by a joint parliamentary committee into the scam. An official spokesman later told media persons that the PM emphasised three areas for prioritising action. First, he wanted a thorough investigation into the fraud and bringing culprits to book. Secondly, he underlined need for taking steps to protect the interest of depositors. He asked the Finance ministry and concerned authorities to evolve legal and other mechanisms so that such frauds by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) did not take place. Gujral directed the Finance ministry to come out with suggestions in this regard soon, but no time-frame, however, had been fixed for this purpose, the spokesman said.

The BJP delegation, comprising T N Chaturvedi, Ram Naik and Kirit Somaiya, demanded that more complaint centres be opened where there was large concentration of depositors. They wanted the procedure for compensation to be simplified.

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The official spokesman said the Prime Minister accepted the delegation’s suggestion that the official liquidator should visit areas where there was concentration of depositors, particularly in Pune and Nashik in Maharashtra.