COOP BANK ON CBI RADAR FACED INSOLVENCY IN 2014

KOLKATA: The West Bengal cooperative bank under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the cattle smuggling case had shut down in 2014 because of insolvency, according to bank officials and a section of customers.

The Birbhum District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd, with its headquarters at Siuri town, reopened after 17 months in October 2015 following efforts by the state government, but got back its licence from the Reserve Bank of India in September 2016, bank officials said on condition of anonymity. A CBI team went through documents at the bank’s Siuri branch on Thursday and found 177 suspicious accounts through which around ₹10 crore is suspected to have been siphoned off in the past few years. Fifty-four of these accounts have been frozen.

The manager of the Siuri branch, Abhijit Samanta, and former manager, Indra Kumar Gurung, were interrogated at the CBI’s Kolkata office on Friday.

The bank, which was established in 1962 with four branches, currently has 15 in Birbhum. It provides loans to mainly farmers and self-help groups. The bank had a working capital of ₹365 crore and deposits of ₹245 crore till March 2020, according to audit reports, bank officials said. The lender made a profit of ₹11.14 crore in 2020 and its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) stood at 12.63% on March 31, 2020.

“In 2014, when the bank shut down, the CAR was minus 49%,” one of the officials said.

The CBI officials sought help from banking experts to examine records, investigators said.

The chairman of the bank is Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Kaliprasad Ghosh. Till September last year, the post was held by TMC leader Nurul Islam. Islam, Siuri residents said, is known to be close to TMC’s Birbhum unit president Anubrata Mondal, the prime suspect in the cattle smuggling case.

Arrested by the CBI on August 11 last year, Anubrata Mondal is in judicial custody. His last bail plea was rejected by an Asansol court on Wednesday.