Bhubaneswar: The economic offences wing (EOW) of Odisha police has arrested a man for allegedly obtaining a loan of Rs 1.42 crore from a major private sector bank using forged land documents.The accused, identified as Mihir Kumar Paikaray, was arrested in the capital on Wednesday in connection with a case registered on July 24.He was produced before the designated court under Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Act in Cuttack on Thursday. The case was registered on a complaint by Sushant Nayak, regional head of the bank’s financial crime prevention group.According to EOW, Paikaray applied for a Rs 1.42-crore loan at the bank’s main branch here by mortgaging a property and submitting allegedly forged land documents. The bank sanctioned and disbursed the loan based on these documents, sources said.The accused subsequently defaulted on the monthly instalments, following which the loan account was classified as a non-performing asset. The outstanding amount is around Rs 1.22 crore, the agency said.The investigation allegedly revealed that Paikaray had earlier secured a Rs 30-lakh loan from another bank by mortgaging the same property using its original sale deed. After he failed to repay that loan, the bank auctioned the property under the SARFAESI Act.EOW officials said records obtained from the sub-registrar’s office indicated that the sale deed submitted to the private sector bank was forged. The stamp paper numbers and the accused’s purported signatures and thumb impressions on the mortgaged deed allegedly did not match those in the certified copy of the registered sale deed.Paikaray had also applied for a Rs 1.5-crore loan from a small finance bank. However, the bank detected alleged manipulation in the bank statements submitted with the application and rejected it, EOW said.Investigators have seized several documents, including the loan application, alleged forged sale deed and the bank’s internal investigation report. Further investigation is underway, officials said.
