In yet another case of loan scam, a case of cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery has been booked against the management of the Ajanta Urban Cooperative Bank as well as the employees concerned who have worked in it since March 2006.
The scam is to the tune of Rs 97.4 crore, the city police said. The auditor of the bank has been arrested.
Based on a complaint lodged by the cooperative societies department’s special auditor Suresh Kakde, the City Chowk police registered an FIR late on Wednesday. Ajanta Urban Cooperative Bank’s incumbent chairman and former Congress MLC Subhash Zambad, CEO Pradeep Kulkarni and bank’s auditor Satish Mohre were named in the FIR.
Zambad refuted all allegations against him and said, “We are ready to assist in the ongoing probe.”
The case has been transferred to the economic offences wing (EOW), which arrested Mohre and produced him before a court on Thursday. He was remanded in police custody.
EOW inspector Sambhaji Pawar said Mohre audited the bank’s transactions for the financial year 2022-23, but did not raise any flags about the 36 suspicious/dubious loan transactions.
“These transactions were found to be in breach of the existing norms and laws after the special auditor of the department of cooperative societies audited the cooperative bank,” said Pawar.
The officer said it has also been found that Mohre submitted forged certificates along with a forged balance sheet, stating that Ajanta Bank has deposits of Rs 32.8 crore in three different banks.
Police said after the alleged dubious transactions came to the notice of the Reserve Bank of India recently, restrictions were imposed on the bank’s transactions.
|