Bank manager, couple get 3-year jail for defrauding Kakinada bank

Visakhapatnam: The second additional special judge for CBI cases, G. Satya Prabhakar Rao, convicted former branch manager of Bank of India, Kakinada, and a couple for defrauding the bank. All three were sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment and asked to pay a fine fof Rs 30,000 each on 19 February. The convicted persons are Marella Satyanarayana Murthy, the branch manager of the Bank of India, Madhuranagar, Kakinada, Marisetti Vankata Satya Chandra Sekhar Sudheer Raju, and his wife Marisetti Durga.

The branch manager, along with four others, hatched a conspiracy to cheat the Bank of India. Satyanarayana Murthy, abusing his official position as a public servant, sanctioned the over draft on mortgage of property to Sudheer Raju and his wife Durga. He disbursed the entire loan amount to the couple on the basis of a legal opinion issued by advocate Ravi Shankar to the effect that the property has a clear title. The valuer, Chandrasekhar, knew fully well that the property mortgaged was an agricultural land but was valued in terms of a residential property.

Thereby, all the five had cheated the bank causing corresponding wrongful gain to themselves and corresponding wrongful loss to the bank, the prosecution charged. An amount of Rs. 9,25,000 and Rs. 9,60,000 (without interest) in both the loans are outstanding, according to the charge sheet.

The court convicted the branch manager and the couple under various Sections of the PC Act, 1988, and ordered that sentences run concurrently. However, advocate P. Ravi Shankar has been acquitted of the charges leveled against him. Chandra Sekhar was also discharged from the case.