Bombay HC grants bail to three former directors of PMC Bank in Rs 4,300 cr scam case – Economic Times

The Bombay High Court has granted bail to three former directors of the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, including Mukti Bavisi, Trupti Suhas Bane and Ranjeet Tara Singh Nandrajog. All three are among the key accused and were arrested in December 2019 in connection with an alleged Rs 4,355 crore scam at the bank.

The former directors of the PMC Bank had approached the high court last year after the Sessions Court had rejected their bail applications in May 2020.

On Wednesday, Justice Prakash D Naik, while granting bail to Nandrajog, Bavisi and Bane in an oral order directed them to submit their passport to the court. However, the bail plea, filed by Dr Vishwanath Sridhar Prabhu, valuer for the bank, was rejected.

Mukti Bavisi was director and member of its loans and advances committee since 2011. Trupti Bane was a member of the loan recovery committee for the period between 2010 to 2015 and of loans and advances since 2015. While Ranjeet Singh was also one of the directors of PMC Bank and also a member of its recovery committee for the past 13 years when he was arrested in late 2019.

Senior Counsel Ashok Mundargi and Nitin Pradhan, along with Rahul Gaikwad, partner of law firm Gravitas Legal appeared for the two directors Bane and Bavisi in the case.

In September 2019, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had imposed restrictions on the fraud-hit multi-state urban cooperative bank, including on withdrawals by customers, following a scam.

The RBI had capped the deposit withdrawal limit at Rs 40,000 and restricted the activities of the PMC Bank after an alleged fraud of Rs 4,355 crore came to light. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized and identified movable and immovable assets worth more than Rs 3,830 crore owned by Mumbai-based realty company Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd () in connection with the case.

So far, the investigation agencies have argued in the court that PMC Bank granted loans of about Rs 2,400 crore to HDIL without following due process. Subsequently, that principle loan amount was increased to Rs 6,670 crore since the realty firm failed to repay multiple loans between 2008 to 2019. The investigation agencies claim that senior management of the PMC Bank covered up these irregularities to avoid scrutiny by the RBI.

The Economic Offense Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police had arrested over a dozen people including board members of the PMC Bank and several other people including former auditors and valuers of the company.