Bangalore:
A family of techies in Bangalore allegedly duped a nationalised bank of Rs 20 lakh by submitting fake property documents.
Gopal Rao (owner of Supreme Technologies), along with his wife Shanthi Kishore (owner of a data processing company) and his brother-in-law (owner of Access Technologies) had supposedly cheated the bank four years ago.
However, the bank came to know about it only recently, as Rao had stopped making payments towards the EMI of the home that he had procured.
According to Vipin Kumar, chief general manager of Syndicate Bank, Rao had applied for a home loan with his wife Shanthi and Hemanth was the guarantor.
He bought a house of about 1,200 sq ft in Tavarekere, near Dharma Ram College, from JR and Irene Ellis.
Shashiraj, the couple's son, was the signatory on behalf of his parents when the property got transferred.
Rao then submitted the documents in the bank to procure loan. The bank's advocate verified the papers before the loan to be paid in 216 EMI's of Rs 19,045 each was sanctioned.
However, when Rao started defaulting on payment of EMIs, the bank sent him a notice to which he didn't reply. The bank then initiated legal action against him and even got the documents verified at the sub registrar's office.
To their utter shock, the documents turned out to be bogus. Besides, there was no sale deed executed between Shashiraj and Rao and the property was in the name of its real owners JR and Irene Ellis.
The bank then filed a cheating case against those involved with the Koramangala police on Saturday. Acting on the complaint, the cops booked Rao, his wife, Hemanth and Shashiraj for duping the bank.
However, cops blamed bank authorities for being careless in substantiating records before sanctioning the loan.
At variance with the police, Kumar claimed that the authentication conducted by the bank before the sale of property revealed that all documents were genuine.
"Besides, it's not mandatory for banks to check the documents again," he said.
Refusing to comment further, he added that he is newly appointed and had taken charge just two months ago.