While the police have arrested Rajan Belsarkar, they are looking for his father Ramrao Belsarkar and mother Shalinee, according to the remand application filed in the Esplanade court. Rajan has been remanded in police custody till January 23 and all three have been booked for forgery with the purpose of cheating and criminal conspiracy.

“Ramrao Belsarkar is a retired Army officer who started a company called Bell Engineers India Private Limited in Ghatkopar (West). He along with his son and wife hatched a criminal conspiracy to cheat Bhartiya Laghu Udyog Vikas Bank. On August 27, 1997 they approached the bank’s Bandra branch and applied for a loan of Rs 50 lakh under the bank’s equipment finance scheme for acquiring heavy-duty construction equipment such as drills and welding rectifiers. They received a loan of Rs 25 lakh from the bank but later defaulted on repayment,” said an EOW officer on condition of anonymity.

According to the remand application, the accused submitted forged documents, which they alleged had been certified by a chartered accountancy firm in the city.

“While applying for the loan the trio had submitted balance sheets, profit and loss statements and financial projections for the next eight years in order to show the borrowing power of Bell India Private Limited. They claimed that these documents were certified by a chartered accountancy firm,” said the officer.

When the trio started defaulting on loan repayment, bank officials took a closer look at the documents and had doubts about their authenticity. After making enquiries, a complaint was lodged by Prakash Tukaram Jagtap, the manager of the branch.

“The bank contacted the CA firm and its representative informed them that the documents submitted to the bank by the accused had not been prepared or certified by their firm. The signatures of the firm’s employees and its seal had been forged by the accused. When called to the bank, Ramrao Belsarkar admitted that he had prepared the documents himself. He then gave the bank three cheques for Rs 3,79,263 each. The cheques were, however, dishonoured when the bank tried to encash them,” said the officer.