Lucknow, Nov 4 : In a decisive blow against banking corruption, the Special CBI Court (West) in Lucknow delivered an order on Tuesday, convicting two retired State Bank of India officials and a Lucknow-based infrastructure firm in a fifteen-year-old fraud that siphoned off 5.7 crore rupees from public coffers.

Retired deputy manager Subhash Chandra Aggarwal and former desk officer Joy Chakravarti, both posted at SBI's main branch and local head office, were each sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped with a fine of thirty thousand rupees.

The third convict, Addyapolo Projects Private Limited, faced a corporate penalty of ten lakh rupees. The company's director, Kranti Kumar Singh, who masterminded the scam, escaped earthly justice by passing away mid-trial.

The conspiracy began in 2009 when Singh, eyeing easy money for his cash-strapped firm, forged invoices and balance sheets to create three ghost supplier entities: Zassoda Global Marketing, RK Traders, and Sambhav Enterprises.

Armed with these papers, he persuaded Aggarwal and Chakravarti to sanction a term loan of 5.7 crore rupees ostensibly for machinery purchases.

Once the funds landed, Singh quietly rerouted every paisa into his personal accounts, leaving the bank holding worthless promises, and the promised equipment never materialised.

A whistle-blower complaint from SBI's deputy general manager reached the CBI on March 26, 2010, triggering raids across Lucknow offices and residences. Investigators uncovered a paper trail of circular transactions, rubber-stamped approvals, and missing machinery that existed only on letterheads.

By November 2011, the agency had filed a watertight chargesheet detailing cheating, criminal conspiracy, and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act.

After 312 hearings spread over fourteen years, Special Judge Anil Kumar Mishra found the evidence 'overwhelming and unbroken'.

In a packed courtroom, the judge noted that the officials had 'betrayed the sacred trust reposed in them by millions of depositors' and turned a blind eye to glaring red flags for petty kickbacks.

Prosecutors revealed WhatsApp chats and handwritten notes recovered from Aggarwal's diary that sealed the collusion.

Outside the court, CBI spokesperson Rina Mitra told reporters that the verdict sends an unambiguous message; no collar, white or khaki, is beyond the law's reach.

SBI's regional manager promised to recover the dues by attaching the company's remaining assets, including a half-built commercial complex on Gomti Nagar's VIP Road.

/IANS