Bank of Maharashtra CMD Ravindra Marathe, four others arrested in fraudulent loans case

MUMBAI: The Pune police on Wednesday arrested Bank of Maharashtra (BOM) Chairman and Managing Director Ravindra Marathe along with four other officers accusing them of misusing their authority in disbursing loans to private realty developer DS Kulkarni.

Marathe along with four other senior bank officials, Chartered Accountants and Engineers of the DSK Developers Ltd and D S Kulkarni's son Shirish Kulkarni were summoned for investigation by the police today. Later in the evening, police said that all of them have been arrested.

D S Kulkarni popularly known as 'DSK' is a prominent real estate developer based in Pune. DSK was a reputed name for the quality and timely delivery of the projects. However, people had started complaining after his projects started getting delayed over past couple of years. After thousands of investors from Mumbai, Pune and Kolhapur realized that the projects in which they have invested money are difficult to take off complaints were lodged against DSK, who tried to flee away.

However, in February DSK and his wife Hemanti were arrested from Delhi and are now lodged in the Yerawada Central Jail in Pune. Over over 2,500 investors have allegedly been cheated by them to the tune of Rs 230 crore, police have said.Apart from Marathe, BoM Executive Director Rajendra Gupta, DSK chartered accountant Sunil Ghatpande and DSK VP Engineering Department Rajiv Newaskar were arrested from Pune while ex-CMD of BoM Sushil Muhnoot was arrested from Jaipur and BoM Zonal Manager Nityanand Deshpande was arrested from Ahmedabad, the police said in a statement.

Marathe was arrested for allegedly misusing his power in sanctioning loans to shell companies. The bank had given loan on the same property three to four times, sources said.The arrests were made under sections 120(B), 406, 409, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 109 r/w 34 IPC & 13(1)(c) r/w 13(2) of the PC Act.According to a police statement, the bank officers colluded with DSKDL by misusing their power and authority with dishonest and fraudulent intention to sanction and disburse the amount of bank under the garb of loan which was siphoned off.