PMC Bank Scam: 3 More, Including Former Director, Arrested

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police which is investigating alleged scam at Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank on Thursday, 12 March, arrested three more persons including a former director.

With the arrest of Jasvinder Singh Banwait, Vishwanatha Shridhar Prabhu and Shripad Govind Jere on Thursday, the number of those arrested in the case reached 15.

Banwait was a director and member of the bank's Loan, Investment and Executive Committee when the alleged Rs 4,355 crore scam involving Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) took place, an EOW official said.

Banwait was interrogated by EOW officials on Thursday at their office regarding loan facilities awarded by PMC Bank to HDIL group companies and efforts made by him to recover or regularise long-pending dues from the group, he said.

Prabhu and Jere are valuers working with Yardi Prabhu Consultants and Valuers Pvt Ltd, he said.

They were allegedly involved in inflated valuation of the Bank's properties in 2012 and 2015 to show capital adequacy as required by the Reserve Bank of India.

The two were acting at the behest of then Managing Director of the bank, Joy Thomas, the official said. All three accused were produced before a court, which sent them in EOW’s custody till Monday.

Meanwhile, a special court on Thursday allowed intervention plea of RBI-appointed administrator on the bank and depositors in a bail case. They had sought to become party to the bail application of Waryam Singh, former chairman of the bank.

The plea said that the scam impacted the livelihood of thousands of business owners and individual account-holders, and if Singh was given bail without hearing them, it will cause "irreparable" harm to their interests.

According to the EOW, the bank management, in cahoots with HDIL promoters, concealed from the regulators' scrutiny huge loan defaults by HDIL group firms.

Over 70 percent of the bank's advances went to HDIL group.