MUMBAI: Three accused in the multi-crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank scam - Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd’s (HDIL) chairman and managing director Rakesh Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan and PMC Bank’s former chairman Waryam Singh – were remanded in judicial custody by Metropolitan Magistrate S G Shaikh here on Wednesday.
The three accused were produced before the metropolitan magistrate as their custody ended on Wednesday. The magistrate remanded them in judicial custody till October 23, even as several depositors protested demanding that their money be returned outside the court.
The Wadhawans was arrested on October 3, while Singh was held on October 5 for their alleged involvement in the Rs 4,355 crore scam at the PMC Bank.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police earlier this month registered a case against the Wadhawans and top officials of PMC Bank for allegedly causing losses to the tune of Rs 4,355.43 crore to the bank and arrested the bank’s former managing director Joy Thomas, whose police custody will expire on October 17.
Meanwhile, the EOW on Wednesday called Surjit Singh Arora, one of the former directors of the PMC bank and a member of its loans committee, for questioning. Arora was questioned by the Special Investigation Team of the EOW at the city police headquarters.
“We are trying to get certain details about the bank’s loan disbursement process,” the official said.
After the scam was unearthed at the bank, which has deposits of over Rs 11,000 crore, the Reserve Bank of India last month appointed an administrator over it, and capped withdrawals at Rs 1,000. On Monday evening, the withdrawal cap was hiked to Rs 40,000.
The EOW earlier told the court that bank officials replaced 44 loan accounts of HDIL with 21,049 fictitious accounts, to camouflage huge loan defaults by the real estate group which landed the bank in the current crisis.