CBI Cracks Down on Rs 183 Crore Fake Bank Guarantee Scam in Madhya Pradesh
In a major bust, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested the Managing Director of an Indore-based company and another individual in a shocking Rs 183 crore fake bank guarantee fraud targeting Madhya Pradesh’s water utility. This scam has rocked the state’s irrigation projects, and officials revealed the details on Tuesday.
The CBI nabbed Mahesh Kumbhani, Managing Director of Teerth Gopicon Private Limited, and Gaurav Dhakad, a private individual, on Monday. The arrests followed a complaint from Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam Limited (MPJNL), the government body handling water and irrigation works.
Acting on orders from the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, the CBI filed three separate cases. These involve serious financial fraud where the Indore company allegedly submitted forged bank guarantees to bag lucrative contracts from MPJNL.
Back in 2023, Teerth Gopicon won three big irrigation projects in Chhatarpur, Sagar, and Dindori districts of Madhya Pradesh. These projects were worth a whopping Rs 974 crore in total. To seal the deals, the company handed over eight fake bank guarantees totaling Rs 183.21 crore.
Thanks to these bogus documents, the company even pocketed around Rs 85 crore as advance payments from MPJNL. The scam got clever when MPJNL tried to verify the guarantees—they received fake email replies pretending to come from Punjab National Bank’s (PNB) official domain. These emails wrongly confirmed that everything was legit, fooling the authorities into awarding the Rs 974 crore contracts.
The CBI plans to present the accused before the Special Magistrate at Indore Court soon. There, they’ll ask for more time to grill them and uncover the full extent of the fake bank guarantee scam.
This isn’t the first arrest in the case. Back in June, the CBI caught a senior PNB manager, Govind Chandra Hansda, and Firoz Khan in Kolkata after questioning bank officials. The probe into this Madhya Pradesh fraud continues, with more revelations expected as the investigation deepens. Stay tuned for updates on this Indore scam that’s shaking up government contracts.
