Police on Wednesday arrested Branch Manager Keshav Pradhan, Assistant Manager Gangadhar Poudel and Credit Chief Surya Lamsal for issuing loan to one Santosh Poudel without conducting due valuation of the land plot pledged as collateral. They have been remanded for further investigation.[break]
Paudel is in custody on the charge of swindling some Rs 70 million from nine banks and financial institutions in Pokhara by producing fake ownership certificates of land plots already pledged as collaterals with other banks.
RBB has deployed two new officers at the branch to make sure that its normal operation is not affected.
The state-owned bank had issued loan of Rs 2.5 million to Poudel after the latter pledged a land plot at Chinnedanda, Pokhara as collateral. The bank discovered later that the plot had already been pledged as collateral to Garima Bikas Bank.
Poudel had later secured clearance of the plot through forgery and divided it into three plots -- two of which were pledged as collateral with RBB.
Pradhan said he and his team were betrayed by the valuator company. “We just issued loan on the basis of land valuation conducted by our listed firm,” he added.
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