PMC Bank scam: Ex-director sent in police custody till Oct 22

Mumbai: A Mumbai court on Thursday remanded in police custody till October 22 Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank's former director Surjit Singh Arora in connection with the multi-crore scam at the bank.

Arora has been arrested by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing. The court also remanded the bank's former managing director Joy Thomas in 14-day judicial custody, after his police remand ended on Thursday.

Arora was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday after being summoned by the investigating agency for questioning in connection with the alleged Rs 4,355 crore scam at the PMC Bank. He was on Thursday produced before metropolitan magistrate S G Shaikh, who remanded him in police custody till October 22.

Arora is the fifth accused to be arrested in the case. According to an EOW official, he earlier served as director of the PMC Bank and was also on its loan committee. "His role in the scam has come to light. He was involved in the loan sanctioning process,” the official said. Besides Arora and Thomas, the EOW has arrested Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd's (HDIL) chairman and managing director Rakesh Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan and PMC Bank's former chairman Waryam Singh in connection with the scam.

The EOW earlier this month registered a case against the Wadhawans and top officials of PMC Bank for allegedly causing losses to the tune of Rs 4,355.43 crore to the bank. After the scam was unearthed at the bank, which has deposits of over Rs 11,000 crore, the Reserve Bank of India last month appointed an administrator over it, and capped withdrawals at Rs 1,000. On Monday, the withdrawal cap was hiked to Rs 40,000.

The EOW told the court that bank officials replaced 44 loan accounts of HDIL with 21,049 fictitious accounts, to camouflage huge loan defaults by the real estate group which landed the bank in the current crisis.