After PNB Now Bank Of Maharastra Under The Scanner For Bad Loans; MD, Other Top Officials Arrested In Pune

The Economics Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune Police has arrested the managing director of Bank of Maharashtra, Ravindra Marathe, its executive director Rajendra Gupta, and two other bank officials for allegedly disbursing crores of rupees in loans to a builder, in violation of rules. The builder in question who is being investigated for a Rs. 2,043 crore financial fraud, is DSK Developers Limited (DSKDL) owned by DS Kulkarni.

Former managing director of the bank, Sushil Muhnot, zonal manager Nityanand Deshpande, DSK’s chartered accountant and statutory auditor, Sunil Ghatpande, and DSKDL chief engineer and vice-president Rajiv Newaskar are among those arrested. Bank of Maharashtra is the only nationalised bank in the country that is headquartered in Pune.

The Rs 2,043-crore fraud relates to siphoning of money raised by DSK group through investors as well as loans from banks and financial institutions, as well as money collected from home buyers in housing projects.

The bank, however, said that its risk exposure to the group was Rs. 94.52 crore and that efforts were being made to recover the money from the defaulter.

The EOW is probing the role of five other officials from other banks which form part of a consortium that loaned DSKDL Rs 600 crore for its Dream City mega housing project in 2016. The bank had committed a loan of around Rs 100 crore to the builder, but only Rs 50 crore was released.