Mumbai, March 12 The Mumbai Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested a former director of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank and two of its valuers in connection with the ongoing probe into the Rs 4,355-crore scam, an official said here on Thursday.
Those arrested are Jasvinder S. Banvait, a former bank director, and valuers Vishwanatha S. Prabhu and Shripad G. Jere from Yardi Prabhu Consultants and Valuers Pvt Ltd.
Banvait was a director-member of Loan, Investment and Executive Committee of the PMC Bank for many years. It is against this background that he was interrogated on the loans extended to HDIL Group, their long-pending dues, and remedial measures initiated to recover or regularise the same.
Prabhu and Jere were charged with complying with the desires of then PMC Bank Chairman Joy Thomas and inflating the valuation of the PMC-owned assets in 2012-2015 to enable maintain the Bank Capital Adequacy Ratio as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India.
The trio were interrogated by the EOW sleuths, and they failed to provide satisfactory or convincing replies, confirming their involvement in the scam, the official claimed.
They have since been remanded in police custody till March 16, said the official.
Earlier, 12 other accused, including top bank officials, HDIL promoters Rakesh Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan and others, were arrested in connection with the PMC Bank scam which erupted in late September 2019 and resulted in the deaths of around 10 persons, including depositors.
The bank's aggrieved depositors have been agitating for the past six months to get their stuck money out of the scam-hit bank after the RBI imposed a moratorium on it last September following serious irregularities.
( With inputs from IANS )