Mumbai: Undue haste in arresting the former chairman of the Bank of Maharashtra (BoM), Ravindra Marathe, and other officers has landed the Pune police in trouble. As the police did not take permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and failed to inform the home department, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) officials got an earful from chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
EOW officials of the Pune police arrested Mr Marathe and other officers of the bank in connection with the probe into the fraud committed by D.S. Kulkarni builders. The police alleged that these officers sanctioned loans to DSK without following norms. However, Mr Marathe and other officers clarified that the DSK fraud had no connection with loans approved to the group.
As per rules, permission has to be taken to arrest senior bank officers i.e. CEOs, chairmen etc. of nationalised banks. But the Pune police did not take permission and also kept the home department in the dark. And now there is uproar within the banking sector about the action taken against top officers of the BoM. The general feeling is that unlike in the case of BoM, no action has been taken against officers of other nationalised banks which sanctioned loans worth thousands of crores only to turn into non-performing assets (NPAs). Fugitives Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi cheated banks and committed fraud but no action was taken against top officers of these banks.
In the DSK matter however, the Pune police acted in haste which is why the state government has to now face the RBI, the courts and a miffed banking sector. It is because of all this that the CM scolded senior officers of Pune police, sources said.
