CEO of Bank of Maharashtra arrested

PUNE: The Economic offences wing (EOW) of Pune Police on Wednesday arrested Ravindra Prabhakar Marathe, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bank of Maharashtra, along with five others in connection with the suspected ₹2,043 crore DS Kulkarni Developers Limited (DSKDL) fraud case. Besides Marathe, those arrested include the bank’s former chairman and MD Sushil Muhnoot from Jaipur; Rajendra Gupta, executive director, and Nityanand Deshpande, the bank’s zonal manager, who was taken into custody from Ahmedabad.

Also arrested were Sunil Ghatpande, DSKDL’s chartered accountant, and Rajiv Newaskar, chief engineer of the company.

Marathe, Gupta, Newaskar and Ghatpande were produced before special judge RN Sardesai in Pune who remanded them in police custody till June 27. Muhnoot and Deshpande are on transit remand. All the accused have been booked by the Shivajinagar police station under Sections 120 (B) (conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Besides, they have also been booked under Section 3 and 4 of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act, 1999.

ACP Nilesh More, who is the investigating officer in the case, in his application before the court stated that Muhnoot, Gupta and Deshpande misused their positions in sanctioning loans to the DSK Group. The bank officials have been accused of colluding with DS Kulkarni, Hemanti Kulkarni and others.