MUMBAI, May 2 -- A special CBI court on Thursday convicted eight people, including a senior Punjab National Bank (PNB) official, for defrauding State Bank of India (SBI) of Rs.8.64 crore through forged Letters of Credit (LCs), fake identities and manipulated verification channels. The case, linked to counterfeit LCs from PNB's Solapur branch, concludes after 15 years of investigation and trial. Special judge Dr JP Darekar held that Ramesh Chandra Tiwari, a PNB senior manager, along with Rajendra Balu Shelke, Satish Krishna Pujari, Akhilesh Harshal Pandey, Nitin Tukaram Kakade and three others had "dishonestly induced" SBI to release funds by presenting forged LCs supported by fake confirmations and impersonation. The conspiracy took shape between September and December 2009, when fake LCs were generated in the name of PNB's Solapur branch. Between December 2009 and January 2010, these instruments were used to seek bill discounting from SBI, with telephonic confirmations obtained from imposters posing as PNB officials. The prosecution said SBI officials initially accepted the instruments as genuine after receiving telephonic confirmations from individuals posing as PNB staff. However, a second verification exposed the fraud when the actual branch manager denied issuing any such LCs and said no employee named "Pandey" worked at the branch, referring to the individual who had earlier posed as a PNB official to falsely authenticate the instruments over the phone. Based on SBI's complaint, the CBI registered an FIR in May 2010. The court observed that the accused built a parallel verification mechanism using controlled phone numbers and fabricated messages. It also pointed to lapses by SBI, noting the bank did not verify the LCs with a local branch before disbursing funds, which the accused exploited. The court said the fraud was part of a wider conspiracy, noting that one of the accused had approached another bank with forged LCs to discount bills worth over Rs.6 crore. Rejecting defence arguments of false implication and unreliable documentary evidence, the court said the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt through bank records, transaction trails and handwriting analysis. The court awarded rigorous imprisonment ranging from six months to three years. Key accused, including Shelke, Pujari, Pandey and Kakade, received up to three years , along with concurrent sentences. Tiwari was convicted under IPC provisions and the Prevention of Corruption Act, and sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment on corruption charges along with concurrent terms....