Sugar tycoon arrested for Rs 88.5 crore bank fraud

R V Tyagarajan (68) is the chairman and managing director of Thiru Arooran Sugars Ltd; as well as the manging director ofShree Ambika Sugars Ltd. He was arrested from his house in Chennai by Cuddalore district crime branch sleuths.

The arrest came after the sugar companies managed by Tyagarajan, allegedly failed to clear the arrears of payment to thousands of sugar cane farmers. However, they had availed loan from a nationalised bank in the farmers names, hoping that the company would repay these loans during the financial years 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Though the management of the sugar company manged to facilitate loans for the sugar cane farmers of Virudhachalam and Thittakudi and settled the firm’s arrears, it later failed to repay the farmers loans as promised.

The farmers came to know about the default after the bank started sending notice of possible attachment of properties to them for not repaying the loans, police said.

The issue was brought to the attention of the district Collector more than a year back by thefarmers.

The petition was later handed over to the Cuddalore district superintendent of police. Sleuths from the district crime branch were probing the case for the last six months, which culminated in the arrest of CMD of the sugar mill.

During the probe, it was found the company management had availed the loans in the name of the farmers, to settle its dues and failed to repay the same on time.

R V Tyagarajan is agraduate from IIT Madras and a master of Science in Management from Sloan School of Management MIT, USA. He has been themanaging director of the Thiru Arooran Sugarssince 1982.