Appointed by lenders, Ernst & Young in its Forensic Audit report from the period of April 2012 to July 2017 said, “The accused (ABG Shipyard) have colluded together and committed illegal activities including diversion of funds, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust and for purposes other than for the purpose for which the funds are released by the Bank.”Ernst & Young was appointed as forensic auditor by lenders in April 2018 and they submitted their report in January 2019.The E & Y report was placed before the Fraud Identification Committee of 18 lenders in 2019. CBI registered a case in 2022.Surprisingly, led by ICICI Bank with the SBI having exposure of Rs 2468.51 crore, a consortium of 28 banks and financial institutions sanctioned loans to the company whose assets were valued less than Rs 200.When asked, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman defended her government saying the time taken to detect the fraud was less than normal.It is worth mentioning here that the Modi government took five years to file the first fraud complaint in the Rs 22,842 loan default ABG Shipyard case.She said the loans were given under the Congress-led UPA regime and the account became a non-performing asset (NPA) in November 2013 and the debt was restructured in March 2014 by all lenders, but it could not be recused.
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