The First Trillionaire

Untitled Part 37

Four weeks passed and Shail settled down in her workplace and miraculously nothing happened at the bank and she was not witness to any more untoward incidents. Slowly, the horror started fading bit by bit. It was as if the incident had never happened, but it did affect Shail in some way. She did not feel like walking alone on the road to her bank anymore, instead preferred Hari to pick her up outside the entrance of the bank. She was unaware of the two bouncers who were positioned outside the bank from the time she arrived till she got in the car at the end of the day.

For Shail, she was only too happy when a car loan was approved for her by the bank. My own car after all this time, no need to bother from Olivia now, she thought, unaware that the loan had been approved because of Olivia.

One morning she came to the office to find Mr Singh in one of his worst possible moods. Being a senior personnel, he hardly cared for the manager at the branch. Shail could guess the reason for it—an auction of a property by the bank. Before the date of the online auction, Shail had been assisting the branch manager and Mr Singh getting the paper work ready for it, and the department head's mood became morose as the day of auction came closer. The quiet manager, Mr Kumar, too seemed to lose patience as it was the quarterly closing. Shail found out soon enough that the online auctioning of a collateral security, which was mortgaged to the East India Bank, was the cause of it all. Shail could not understand the complexity of the problem so she decided to look it up and do as much research as possible. The property was leased to a school run by the East India Diocese and church, headquartered at Patna. The owners of the property had taken a mortgage loan by mortgaging five acres of land, valued at $1 million approximately at the time of availing the loan, however increased commercialization in the surrounding area resulted in a spurt in the property price. There was a tripartite agreement between the borrowers, the bishop of the East India Diocesan Church and the bank. The school authorities had made an agreement to pay the rentals directly in the mortgage loan account of the borrowers. The agreement between the bank, the bishop of the East India Church and the borrowers was signed. The loan account was standard and running smoothly, so in the year 2010, an additional loan was given to a trust formed by the owners for a proposal of constructing a hostel for the boys of the school. An additional property was kept as collateral, which wasworth approximately $2.5 million at the time of taking the loan. The trust availed a full loan and also constructed the said hostel, but they could not furnish it fully. In the meanwhile, a dispute arose between the trustees and the loan account became substandard. The property was put on sale. It was very difficult for the bank to vacate the tenants as the church made a public issue about the discontinuation of education of some 3000 students.

One of the top bidders for the online auction of the properties was a certain Bachchu Singh. The name rang a bell when Shail saw it. She was curious; she wanted to know more about this person and so she began to search for his details and dug around a little bit. She searched for Bachchu Singh's background and found that he was a defaulter to many other advances taken from other banks. He did not have a clean slate and his notoriety was a tale to tell in and around the bank, which did not surprise Shail for she had witnessed it firsthand. Yes, she realized that it was the same man whom she met on that lonely road.

Shail felt that she should not help the wrong people in any way she could, so she decided to stop Bachchu Singh from getting the land that he wanted so badly. She protested and the matter got aggravated, when Shail completely refused to put her initials on the papers regarding auction/confirmation of sale by the authorized officer of the bank, although Bachchu Singh's papers fulfilled all the criteria led by the branch in an online auction. Only a couple of hours remained for the bidding to close when a new bid surpassed the previous bid by Bachchu Singh. It was floated by Rose Bud Investment.

The manager in consultation with the legal officer at the zonal office completed all the formalities once the bidding time closed. It was the quarterly closing and as the manager was hard pressed for deposits, he told Shail to consult with some clients.

"How much is the deposit shortfall?"

"It is around $10 million."

Shail decided to ask Olivia for help and she was not disappointed. The required amount was transferred that very evening.

The manager was surprised and he could not help asking Shail.

"How do you know Rosebud?"

"One of the promoters is my Facebook friend," Shail was blunt in her reply.

Bachchu Singh was livid; he could not understand how something so out of the ordinary could happen with his business interests. I don't know who is behind all this but I'll never let him off so easily; he is not aware that he is in my territory. He had been pacing inside the large sitting room without rest ever since he got a call informing him about the result of the auction of a land about two weeks after the date of auction.

The result was out and for the first time, he was not the one who was going to get the mortgaged land. Someone else had beaten him to it.

"Hamid, find out about the person who thinks he can dare to compete with me and win. And also see to it that if there is a chance to get that land back from him. I had promised Khan bhai that I'll give him a nice plot of land in return for some of his goods."

Hamid nodded and left the room.