The CBI has filed a charge sheet against Hanung Toys and Textiles Ltd and others including its promoters and directors for allegedly defrauding a consortium of 12 banks under Punjab National Bank to the tune of Rs 2040.63 crore, officials said Thursday. Besides promoters and directors Ashok Kumar Bansal and Anju Bansal, the agency has also listed associate persons Rishu Agarwal, Manoj Kumar Garg and Kali Kant Jha, statutory auditor Piyush Jain and company secretary Arvind Kumar Gupta in the charge sheet.
After nearly two years of probe, the CBI has found that the accused allegedly manipulated account books "by suppressing the actual derivative loss and made false financial statements across the years, from year 2008-2013" to project an inflated financial health of the company, the officials said. "It was further alleged that the quantum of suppressed derivative loss were malafidely and incorrectly reflected as non-existent debtors as well as stock in its books of accounts, thereby resulting into excess borrowing of Rs. 478.35 crore (approx) from the consortium banks," CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said in a statement.
The company, which was one of the largest exporters of stuffed toys having some top international retail chains as its customers, "inflated its turnover by entering into non-genuine transactions with certain parties", the agency alleged in its charge sheet filed recently before a special CBI court. "These trades were allegedly done in circular transactions amounting to Rs. 560 crore (approx) in order to siphon money from the banks and diverted the funds for personal gains/benefits of the directors and promoters of the said company," Joshi said.
Circular transactions are sham transactions between related companies of a single group. The CBI has kept the probe open to investigate further, the officials said.
The accounts of the company, a major supplier to global toys and home furnishing megastores in Europe, had turned non-performing assets during 2013-15, the bank had alleged in its complaint which was incorporated into a CBI FIR registered on September 25, 2020. According to a forensic audit, the company had indulged in fraud in its business transactions, it had alleged.
The audit spotted differences in the figures of receivables, stocks and payables between the annual report and the stock audit report, signalling fabrication of the book of accounts, the bank had said. The amount disclosed in the account books of the company and those of the creditors are not different, indicating fabrication of accounts, it added.
The report showed transactions of over Rs 11,257 crore were routed through a company called Almondz Impex Private Limited, which did not exist at the address given, the bank had alleged. Almondz Impex, engaged in the business of commission agents and commodity brokers, was incorporated in 2013, but did not file any balance sheets, it had added.
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