Rotomac: Kothari, son in CBI custody

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, February 20

The CBI on Tuesday took Rotomac group directors Vikram Kothari and his son Rahul in custody in the close to Rs 4,000 crore loan default case.

Sources said the father-son duo was brought to Lucknow in their own Skoda car along with three cars containing a stockpile of documents relating to the case.

Arriving at the Kothari’s plush Tilak Nagar residence in Kanpur on Tuesday morning, the CBI team took Vikram Kothari, wife Sadhna, son Rahul and daughter-in-law Archana along to search various factories, business establishments and bank accounts in their presence and continued with their questioning on the second consecutive day.

They are all directors in the Rotomac Global Pvt Ltd and were presented before the National Company Law Tribunal. The bank account of the Kotharis in Kotak Mahindra’s Mall road branch was frozen and their passports seized to prevent them from fleeing the country. 

The CBI had filed an FIR against Kothari and his family after a complaint was filed against them by the Bank of Baroda.  Vikram Kothari had taken loan from seven banks for various projects. The highest amount of Rs 755 crore was from Bank of India. The Bank of Baroda had loaned Rs 457 crore and after default it lodged a complaint on which the CBI filed the FIR. 

Kothari had taken Rs 771 crore from Indian Overseas Bank, Rs 459 crore from Union Bank of India, Rs 97.47 crore from Oriental Bank of Commence, Rs 49.83 crore from Bank of Maharashtra and Rs 330 crore from Allahabad Bank.

Interestingly, he had mortgaged property worth Rs 20 crore with the Allahabad Bank for a loan of Rs 330 crore. On evaluation the property was found to be worth not more than Rs 12 crore!

I-T dept attaches 14 bank accounts

• The I-T Department has attached 14 bank accounts in connection with an alleged tax evasion probe against the Rotomac group and its promoters
• The provisional attachment action has been carried out to ‘recover outstanding tax demands’, understood to be about Rs 85 crore, officials said
• They added that while the 11 accounts frozen Monday night are in the name of the Rotomac group, the rest are in the name of the Kothari family.