The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police arrested three former directors of the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank Ltd late on Tuesday evening, in connection with the Rs 4,355 crore scam.
The police identified the three arrested former directors of the PMC Bank as Jagdish Mookhey, Mukti Bavisi and Trupti Bane.
While Mookhey was a member of the Audit Committee from 2005 to 2020, Bavisi was member of the loans and advances committee between 2011 and 2020. Bane was on the Bank’s recovery committee from 2015 to 2020.
Ahead of their formal arrested, the three former directors were questioned in connection with the loans and facilities extended to the HDIL Group and the status of their long-pending recoveries. They failed to provide satisfactory replies to the investigators, prompting their arrest.
The investigators will produce the three arrested former directors of the bank before a city court on Wednesday morning and seek their remand.
With the latest arrests, the total number of arrests in the PMC Bank scam has gone up to eleven.
Earlier on November 16, the police had arrested Sardar Ranjeet Singh, son of a city BJP leader and former MLA from Mulund Sardar Tara Singh.
Among those arrested so far include: two promoters of the Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) Sarang Kumar Wadhawan and Rakesh Wadhawan
The PMC Bank’s exposure to the HDIL group was nearly 73 per cent of its total loan book size of Rs 8,880 crore as of September 19, 2019.
The EOW suspects a nexus between some of the accused and realty group HDIL, whose mammoth loan defaults are said to have caused a liquidity crisis at the bank, leading to appointment of administrator and restrictions on withdrawal of funds.
The bank’s former chairman Waryam Singh, managing director Joy Thomas and other senior officials, along with the directors of HDIL Sarang Wadhwan and Rakesh Wadhawan, have been named in the FIR.
HDIL’s promoters had allegedly colluded with the bank management, to draw loans from the bank’s Bhandup branch.
During the course of the investigations, it has come to light that the PMC Bank created more than 21,000 fake accounts to hide the various loans.
In a “confession” made to the RBI through a letter, PMC Bank’s suspended Managing Director Joy Thomas had earlier admitted to have given loans to HDIL and its related entity to the tune of Rs 6,500 crore without informing all the board members.