Cuttack: The Orissa High Court on Monday rejected the bail petition of a former senior official of the Union Bank of India (UBI) in a loan fraud case of over Rs 24 crore.
While refusing bail to Ashwini Kumar Patra, a former assistant manager of UBI Nayapalli Branch in Bhubaneswar, a bench of Justice SK Sahoo observed that the crime was committed in a cool, calculated and organised manner causing wrongful loss of crores to the bank.
“There are prima facie materials showing involvement of the petitioner in the deep-rooted conspiracy with other co-accused persons to cause such a huge loss to the bank,” the bench said.
“Granting bail to the petitioner in economic offences of this nature would be against the larger interest of public and State as it involves criminal misappropriation and cheating of huge amount of public money and there is also reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witnesses. Accordingly, the bail application sans merit and hence stands rejected,” the bench added.
According to sources, the accused was arrested by the CBI in July 2019 along with two other officials for allegedly entering into criminal conspiracy and abused their official positions in the matter of processing/sanction/disbursal of housing loans.
The CBI has filed charge sheet in the case under Sections 409, 420 and 471 read with section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018).
Earlier on January 7, 2021, the Special CBI Judge court in Bhubaneswar turned down the bail application of the accused.