“To slap a criminal case against bankers for sanctioning loans is silly,” said VG Kannan, IBA CEO and former State Bank of India (SBI) official. “We have already taken up the matter with the department of financial services in Delhi and the Maharashtra government here. Both claim ignorance about why these arrests happened and have promised all cooperation. We plan to meet on Friday and decide what to do next,” Kannan said.
On Wednesday, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune Police arrested Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) CEO Ravindra Marathe, former managing director Sushil Muhnot, executive director Rajendra Gupta and two other bank officials for allegedly colluding with real estate developer DS Kulkarni to divert money and cheat shareholders.
All the officials were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act amounting to cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, and were remanded to police custody till June 27.
Marathe and Muhnot are the latest to face the heat of investigative agencies. It all started in January last year when former IDBI chairman Yogesh Agarwal and four other executives were arrested in a case linked to the Vijay Mallya loan default.
Former Canara Bank chairman RK Dubey, former United Bank of India chairman Archana Bhargava, former Punjab National Bank CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian and former IDBI executives Kishor Kharat, Melwyn Rego and MS Raghavan are also facing charges.