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A new fraudulent transaction of ₹6,182.11 crore has been unearthed in Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd, which is set to be acquired by the Piramal Group. The disclosure was made in a report by the non-banking finance company’s transaction auditor Grant Thornton.
Based on the report, the DHFL management has filed an application with NCLT, Mumbai, against 33, including Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wadhawan, Creatoz Builders, Ikshudip Fincap, Rite Developers and other entities. DHFL has been under an RBI administrator since 2019. The central bank had superseded the DHFL board, citing governance issues and payment defaults.
The latest disclosure will, however, have no impact on the ongoing debt resolution process. Last month, Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Ltd had emerged the successful bidder for the debt-laden DHFL and the RBI has also given its approval to the plan. The lenders are now set to seek approval from the NCLT.
DHFL owes ₹81,000 crore to state-run institutions, mutual funds and retail bond holders. The debt resolution process will help lenders recover about ₹35,000 crore.
Series of fraud deals
Since 2019, a number of fraudulent transactions have been discovered. Earlier this month, on February 4, DHFL had reported fraudulent deals of ₹5,559.05 crore that were unearthed by its transaction adviser.
In December 2020, a fraud of ₹1,058.32 crore was uncovered based on an additional report filed by Grant Thornton. Similarly, in September 2020, a forensic audit by the same auditor had unearthed fraudulent transactions of over ₹17,000 crore.
Fake accounts
A whopping 2.6 lakh fake accounts were created in a Mumbai branch that itself did not exist. The ‘branch’ created fake accounts using names of account holders who had already repaid loans in full to siphon off ₹11,750 crore. Coding was done with the help of three software platforms to camouflage these transactions, according to probe documents seen by BusinessLine.
The DHFL scrip closed 4.75 per cent lower at ₹18.05 apiece on the BSE on Monday.
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