Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank depositors held protests outside Matoshree, the residence of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, on Sunday. Protestors were also seen holding posters blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the crisis. Some protestors were also detained by the police. Later, a delegation of the PMC Bank depositors met Thackeray and apprised him about their concerns.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had recently said that around 78 per cent of PMC Bank's depositors were now allowed to withdraw their money, even though the ceiling of Rs 50,000 on withdrawal continued. She also said in the Lok Sabha that the government had allowed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to auction PMC Bank promoters' attached properties to fast track payments to the troubled depositors.
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Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank last month told the Bombay High Court that senior officials of the scam-hit PMC Bank used special codes to hide hundreds of dummy loan accounts of HDIL. The bank's total loan exposure with HDIL was at 73 per cent. In an affidavit, the RBI also said of the 1,800 employees of the bank, only about 25 could access the loan accounts of HDIL and its group entities.
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The Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) this month arrested three directors of PMC Bank in its ongoing probe into the Rs 4,355-crore scam, taking the total number of arrested people in the case to 12. Those who have been held include Jagdish Mookhey, Mukti Bavisi and Trupti Bane. They were arrested following an investigation into credit facilities provided by PMC Bank to now-bankrupt Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) and its group companies.
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As per allegations, HDIL promoters Rakesh Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan in connivance with PMC Bank Officials, including MD Joy Thomas and former chairman Waryam Singh and others, fraudulently availed several loans and defrauded PMC bank of over Rs 4,355 crore. They all have been arrested in the case. During its probe, ED had found several instances of siphoning off funds and had attached properties worth several hundred crores in the case.
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