Published On : Wed, Nov 6th, 2019

Navodaya Bank Scam: Dhawad remanded to police custody till Nov 13

Advertisement

Nagpur: The special court of Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) on Wednesday ordered seven days PCR of former MLA and President of Navodaya Urban Cooperative Bank, Ashok Dhawad.

Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday produced Dhawad, before the MPID court and demanded his 14 days PCR on the grounds that police wanted to seek comprehensive information about the scam from the accused.

Adv Abhay Jichkar represented government while Adv. Chaitainya Barve represented Dhawad and opposed the PCR. He contended that there is no requirement of PCR that for 14 days and the cops have demanded exorbitant PCR. The lawyer also argued that the accused was promised interim bail. Therefore, PCR for 14 days is not warranted.

After hearing both the sides, justice Patil granted PCR till November 14.

Dhawad previously had surrendered before MPID on Monday. Dhawad and his wife Kiran has been accused of multi-crore Navodaya Bank scam. Dhawad, who was the bank’s director between 2011 and 2015, had been charged with fraud, forgery and criminal breach of trust along with 16 other ex-directors of the bank. In the scam pertaining to misappropriation of funds in Navodaya Urban Cooperative Bank, Dhawad along with 16 other bank directors have been booked by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on the basis of a complaint lodged by the auditor of State Department of Cooperatives.

Last month, the former CEO of the bank, Samir Chatte was arrested by the sleuths of EOW. With Chatte’s arrest the number of arrests in the case climbed to 23 while 40 others are still absconding.

All of them were accused of duping hundreds of investors by distributing bogus loans between 2010 and 2015. Subsequently, the cooperative bank had gone into liquidation after its banking license was cancelled few months ago. Frauds were reported following an audit conducted for financial years 2015-16 and 2016-17 allegedly involving Dhawad and his team of directors.