Industrialist-turned-politician and former Union minister Yalamanchali Satyanarayana Chowdary alias Sujana Chowdary, might have jumped from the Telugu Desam Party into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in last June in an apparent attempt to wriggle out of the multiple economic offences, including bank fraud cases.
But Sujana is not able to escape from the long arm of the law. On Thursday, Bank of India issued a public notice, announcing e-auction of his various assets to recover its loan amounting to Rs 400 crore, taken by his firm Sujana Universal Industries Ltd. The auction is scheduled to be held on March 23.
Sujana and his group of industries are among of the biggest bank defaulters and are under probe by several investigation agencies. In fact, Sujana Universal Industries had admitted in a filing that it has an outstanding debt of Rs1,123.16 crore as on 31 March 2019.
The total bank frauds of Sujana through over 120 shell companies is said to be more than Rs 6,000 crore.
In this particular case, Sujana’s firm is due to pay Rs 322 crore since October 26, 2018 and along with interests, the loan outstanding has now mounted to a little over Rs 400 crore.
There were reports in the past that Sujana had sought time till September last year to repay the loans, but with the deadline expiring, the bank has decided to auction his properties.
There have been several other cases against Sujana. In November 2018, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached assets worth Rs 315 crore, including six luxury cars and documents during their raids at his residence and offices. In fact, BJP spokesman G V L Narasimha Rao described Sujana as “Andhra Vijaya Mallya.”