Court allows Bhushan Steel's ex-CFO to visit ailing mother

Delhi High Court on Friday permitted Nitin Johri, Bhushan Steel's former chief financial officer who is in judicial custody since May 8, to visit his ailing mother in the hospital for few hours.

Johri, through senior counsel Sudhir Nandrajog, had approached the court for interim bail on account of his mother's drastically deteriorating terminal illness.

Justice Sunil Gaur granted permission to Johri to meet his mother in the hospital while remaining in the custody.

Nitin Johri was arrested by SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office) earlier this month.

According to the sources, Johri was managing the firm and looking after inter alia the affair of raising of funds from various banks and financial institutions.

He was one of the signatories to the financial statements of Bhushan Steel (BSL) till the fiscal 2016-17 and was also a member of the "Committee of Board of Directors on Borrowing, Investment and Loans" of BSL along with Brij Bhushan Singal and Neeraj Singal.

The SFIO probe alleged that there were fraudulent practices in the company, including mpulations in the accounts and financial statements when Johri was its CFO. These included maintaining inflated inventories for availing enhanced working capital.

Sources said Johri was one of the prime perpetrators of the fraudulent arrangement of mpulations through the instrument of Letters of Credit (LCs) by filing false documents with various banks.

A number of LCs, amounting to more than Rs. 20,000 crore, were opened using false documents on behalf of the BSL over a period of time starting from the financial year 2014-15.

By way of the said modus operandi, sources said, BSL inter alia availed working capital to avoid getting their loan or credit accounts declared as NPAs by banks. LCs worth more than Rs. 3000 crore were finally devolved, sources mentioned.

CBI has accused Singhal and others of availing loans from 33 banks and financial institutions from 2007 to 2014 and defaulting on payments worth over Rs 2,000 crore. They have also been accused of fraudulently diverting a huge amount of bank funds through shell compes.