The CRB Scam

He had established good contacts in the Registrar of Companies and the Controller of Capital Issues offices. He registered companies with practically no equity and then stage-managed the dummy company's maiden public issue with a few hundred investors, largely from Calcutta's close knit Marwari Jain community. Having had a company listed on the stock exchange, Bhansali then sold it for a profit to businessmen who needed dummy public limited companies in a hurry. Bhansali used his own money to rig share prices in order to raise more money from the markets in two ways. Firstly, he bought his own stock through private finance companies owned by him. Secondly, he used his other public companies to buy into each other as cross-holdings...

However, Bhansali was granted only a current account facility and did not enjoy any overdraft facility. He was expected to deposit cash upfront into the current account, along with a list of payments that had to be honored. Claming that the logistics of payment were very complex and that it was not possible for every branch to check with the head office before honoring a dividend warrant, the branches gradually began treating these instruments just like a demand draft. For about nine months, the setup worked very well.

However, in March 1997, SBI realized that the account had been overdrawn to the extent of a few crores. Bhansali was called to the SBI office and asked to remit the difference immediately, which he promptly did...