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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested former chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) and former general manager (GM) of Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL) and were produced before the Special CBI Court, Mumbai, CBI said in a press release.
As per the release, the arrests were made in connection with a case of alleged bribery of Rs 3 crore and fraudulent disbursal of a loan from BECIL to an accused Mumbai-based firm. The Court has granted Police custody of arrested accused public servants for 4 days till April 19. George Kuruvilla, then CMD of BECIL, and WB Prasad, then GM of BECIL, were arrested on Wednesday. The CBI had earlier arrested another accused, Prateek Kanakia, CEO of TGBL, on March 24, 2025, and he was taken into Police Custody, which was allowed to continue until April 1, 2025. He was subsequently transferred to judicial custody thereafter. In view of the arrest of accused public servants, the remand of accused Prateek Kanakia was also sought. The Special CBI Court in Mumbai granted him further police custody for 3 days, from April 17 to April 19. CBI had earlier registered a case on September 3, 2024, against George Kuruvilla, then CMD, BECIL; W.B. Prasad, GM(P-1), BECIL; Ashish Pratap Singh, then Legal Advisor, BECIL; Sudhir Chauhan, then Consultant, BECIL; Prateek Kanakia, CEO & Founder of TGBL, Mumbai and unknown others for the offences u/s. 120-B r/w 201, 420, 467, 468 & 471 IPC and Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (As amended in 2018). Investigation conducted so far has revealed that during the year 2022 accused persons entered a criminal conspiracy with each other and in furtherance of the said criminal conspiracy, the Chairman & Managing Director of BECIL sanctioned and got disbursed venture loan of Rs 50 crore to TGBL and obtained an undue advantage of Rs 3 crore from co-accused Prateek Kanakia. Investigation also revealed that TGBL (co-accused Prateek Kanakia) had submitted a fake Performance Bank Guarantee (PBG) of Rs 25 crore. Further, Co-accused Prateek Kanakia did not utilise the loan amount for the purpose it was sanctioned and did not return the said loan to BECIL. Due to the omission and commission of the arrested accused, BECIL has incurred a wrongful loss of approximately Rs 58 crore. Investigation is continuing. (ANI)
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