INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police filed an over 32,000-page chargesheet in connection with the multi-crore scam at
Punjab - Maharashtra Cooperative Bank on Friday, charging HDIL promoters Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan as well as former bank chairman Waryam
Singh, managing director Joy Thomas and director SS Arora.
The EOW charged the former management of PMC Bank with failing to report an
account of Rakesh Wadhawan with an outstanding amount of ?1,671.88 crore as the top borrower from the HDIL Group and filing false statements
with the Reserve Bank of India to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
Of 43 accounts with an outstanding amount of ?5,027.33 crore in FY18, only 21
loan accounts of the HDIL Group with dues of ?333.14 crore were reported to the RBI, according to the chargesheet reviewed by ET
Sarang Wadhawan hatched a criminal conspiracy to cause wrongful gains for their company by taking loans from PMC Bank against mortgage
been reported as the top borrower from HDIL Group in 2018, according to the EOW
However, bank officials, acting under instructions from superiors, excluded his name
The acts of concealing material facts of the total credit exposure of HDIL Group companies in PMC Bank and the preparation of false
statements filed with the RBI fall well within the ambit of forgery and criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code, the EOW said in the
chargesheet.
Similarly, irregularities were observed in other statements submitted to the RBI that dealt with segment-wise analysis and the
These accounts included 21,049 fictitious accounts purportedly prepared over the years to conceal 22 loan accounts of HDIL with outstanding
dues of ?4,638.46 crore and 22 other loan accounts with outstanding dues of ?3,815.82 crore, according to the chargesheet.
The probe
revealed that HDIL and associate companies availed of mortgage against overdraft/mortgage loan type credit from PMC Bank between 2008 and
2014, while Sarang and Rakesh Wadhawan availed of similar loan facilities from 2009 to 2013
While awarding these mortgage facilities, PMC Bank did not follow the rules.
In the case of Sarang Wadhawan, the memorandum of deposit limit
of ?10 crore was sanctioned in 2009 and by 2018, this limit had been renewed to ?91 crore
The enhanced amount was disbursed without any security
However, officials have not obtained security against facilities awarded facilities have been enhanced periodically without taking into
assets, kept charging interest on these outstanding dues to keep them alive and present them as financially sound, it was stated in the
The bank started to conceal select non-performing exposures by replacing the information with dummy accounts
The largest outstanding balance among the fictitious accounts mentioned in the advance master indent of FY18 was only ?42.83 lakh, the
According to the chargesheet, PMC Bank included 2,500 accounts in the advance master file in 2014-15 and while adding them, only the
outstanding amount was mentioned
In 2015-16, a new set of accounts was included
For 2016-17, an additional 4,969 new fictitious accounts were included for a total of 17,469
exercise was done for the purpose of concealing huge outstanding of HDIL Group accounts the practice of creating fictitious accounts was
maintained three notebooks containing details of the money paid and received by HDIL and its associate companies, Rakesh and Sarang
Wadhawan, Waryam Singh and Joy Thomas
The money belonged to public depositors
The statements of over 40 depositors were attached with the chargesheet