Bank looted of `3000 crores

Bank of Maharashtra top brass arrested for giving fraudulent loans to DS Kulkarni Group

The Economic Offences Wing has arrested Ravindra P Marathe, the chairman and managing director of Bank of Maharashtra, in yet another case of fraudulent loans – this time touching Rs 3,000 crores – that were extended to Pune's DS Kulkarni Group.

As part of this scam, huge amounts of loans were sanctioned to shell companies, which were later siphoned off. The EOW has also arrested the bank's executive Director Rajendra K Gupta, zonal manager Nityanand Deshpande and former CMD Sushil Muhnot.

It is suspected that the bank officials colluded with the DSK Group in the sanction of fraudulent loans, thereby misusing their position of authority in flagrant violation of the RBI guidelines.

According to an RTI activist, the end use of the loan was never checked. One such loan was sanctioned on the pretext of meeting temporary mismatch in cash flows.”

Kulkarni and his wife are also accused of defrauding thousands of investors in Pune, Mumbai and Kolhapur: they put lakhs of rupees in a fixed deposit scheme of the DSK Developers, but neither received the interest nor the principal amount.

In May this year, the Maharashtra government had issued a notification directing authorities to attach 124 properties, 276 bank accounts and 46 vehicles belonging to the DSK Group, as Kulkarni was “unlikely to return their deposits.”

The city police had filed a 37,000-page charge-sheet against Kulkarni and his wife in the case. Both are currently lodged in the city’s Yerwada Central Jail.

Last month, the police arrested Kulkarni’s other relatives, including Kedar Vanjape, the son-in-law of Kulkarni’s brother and his wife Sai Vanjape.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court had rejected the interim bail plea of Kulkarni’s son Shirish, who was an executive director in the group and a director in other partnership firms. With Wednesday’s arrest, the total number of arrests in the case has gone up to 12.