Police arrest 15 directors, six others for defaulting loans.
The Pune police on Saturday arrested 15 directors of the Shree Suvarna Sahakari Bank for their alleged involvement in a Rs 436.74-crore (Rs 4.36 billion) loan scam.
Bank chairman and former president of the Maharashtra Cricket Association Dnyaneshwar Agashe, his son Ashutosh, wife Rekha and 12 others on the board of directors were taken into custody in the morning.
The police said that the 15 accused along with six others allegedly misused their rights and sanctioned loans mostly to firms owned by themselves and then defaulted the loans, thereby duping the depositors.
The arrests were made after a complaint was filed by Rajesh Jadhavar, special auditor, cooperatives department, Maharashtra government.
Speaking to reporters, additional commissioner of police (Crime) Rajinder Singh said, "The complaint filed by the government auditor clearly suggests loan defaults worth Rs 436.74 crore are by firms that are mostly owned by the bank's directors.
"While approving the loans, the directors did not ask for sufficient securities or mortgages from the borrowers. The directors did not even comply with central bank's guidelines when approving these 269 defaulted loan accounts. We have arrested 15 out of the 21 accused today. Further arrests will take place soon."
Singh pointed out that 89 per cent of the total loan amount disbursed by the bank went to only 5 per cent of the borrowers.
Over the last three years, cooperative banks in Maharashtra have seen similar developments where members of board of directors of banks such as Ajit Cooperative Bank and the Rupee Cooperative Bank have been arrested for similar reasons.
The Reserve Bank of India had put the Pune-based cooperative bank under moratorium since December 2007 following heavy non-performing assets ratio, non-recovery of loans and non-compliance of RBI guidelines in case of loan approvals worth Rs 436.74 crore.
Recently, the Indian Overseas Bank and the Cosmos Cooperative Bank had sent proposals to RBI and the finance ministry to take over the debt-ridden bank.
