Mumbai Police's EOW arrests two auditors in PMC scam; Depositors meet Mumbai police chief for deets

Mumbai, November 12: In a recenet update to the PMC bank fraud case, the Mumbai Police, Economic Offences Wing on Tuesday arrested two auditors for successfully covering up the irregularities involving some top officials of the bank.

 

The arrested duo, Jayesh Sanghani and Ketan Lakdawala, had served as statutory auditors when the scam was committed and suspected to have played a key role in the bank scam. Police had earlier called Sanghani and Lakdawala, the proprietors of Ashok Jayesh & Associates and Lakdawala & co, respectively, for questionning.

 

 

"They failed to give convincing replies regarding their role as the statutory auditors of the PMC Bank. They were arrested and booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code", the officer said. Probing the scam, the EOW suspects a nexus between some of the accused and HDIL group companies.

 

This is probably after around 400 depositors of Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank met Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Barve and briefed him about problems being faced by them after the RBI put certain restrictions on the troubled lender.

 

The commissioner assured the depositors that the police would take every possible action to bring the culprits to book and recover the money of depositors. While the city police's Economic Offences Wing is probing the alleged irregularities in grant of loans to certain corporate entities, it has so far arrested five people, including promoters of realty group HDIL and top bank officials.

 

Meanwhile the sessions court on Monday rejected the pre-arrest bail pleas filed by two directors of the scam-hit PMC Bank. Additional Sessions Judge S T Soor turned down the applications of Parmeet Sodhi and Surjit Singh Narang after noting that their custodial interrogation was required.

 

The PMC Bank was put under restrictions by the RBI in September after the alleged crore scam came to light. The deposit withdrawal was initially capped at Rs 1,000 and then raised in a staggered manner to Rs 50,000 per customer.