The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Amar Sadhuram Mulchandani, former Chairman of Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank on July 1 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank fraud case, the agency said on Wednesday. According to the agency, a Mumbai court has granted his custody for six days — till Friday or July 7.
The arrest is made in connection with the ongoing investigation in Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank fraud case in which the Bank has suffered a loss of Rs 429 crore in 124 NPA loan accounts. This has caused the Bank to go bankrupt causing loss to thousands of small depositors.
ED initiated an investigation on the basis of multiple FIRs registered in Pune against Amar Mulchandani, ex-chairman of the bank along with its directors/officials and loan defaulters. “Investigation has revealed that bank was being run like a family proprietorship by Amar Mulchandani. Amar Mulchandani treated public deposits in the Bank like his personal fiefdom and violated all prudent Banking norms to illegally sanction loans to his favoured borrowers in arbitrary manner, without checking their creditworthiness and without adequate collateral securities and after taking bribes at the rate of 20 per cent commission of the sanctioned loan amounts,” ED said.
“He made his family members as Directors in the bank with a clear motive to have brute majority in Board of Directors to sanction loans as per his whims and fancies. More than 92 per cent of the loan accounts had turned NPA which ultimately led to the collapse of the bank,” ED said. RBI has cancelled the license of the bank.
Earlier, properties worth Rs 122.35 crore were provisionally attached in this case including various benami assets of Amar Sadhuram Mulchandani.
