MUMBAI: Even as posters at several places in Mumbai demanded action against City Cooperative Bank (CCB) Chairman and Shiv Sena leader Anandrao Adsul in the bank scam, the leader has dubbed it as an effort to scuttle the ongoing process of merging the bank with the state cooperative bank.
On Monday, the posters were seen opposite to Chief Minister and Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray’s Bandra residence Matoshree, Shiv Sena headquarters ‘Sena Bhavan’ at Dadar, the Mantralaya (State Secretariat) and Shiv Sena legislature party office Shivalaya in South Mumbai, the Mumbai Press Club near CSMT and the Churchgate railway station.
The posters that bore images of CM Uddhav Thackeray, Anandrao Adsul, his son Abhijit and close aide Sameer Chavan, asked whether the Thackeray government would do justice to the account holders of the bank.
“While the bank directors and officials involved in PMC bank scam were arrested immediately, would the similar swift action follow against perpetrators of scam in CCB, would the family members of 11 account holders who have died over past year get the justice, would the procedure to merge the bank hasten and account holders’ money would be returned to them,” the posters sought to know.
The association of CCB account holders had last year accused Adsul of arbitrary distribution of loans and thereby causing a fraud to the tune of Rs 900 crore. Conduct of the board of directors attracted RBI restrictions in April 2018 preventing over 91,000 account holders of the CCB to withdraw their money, they had said while seeking action against former Shiv Sena MP Anand Adsul.
Adsul, however, dubbed the posters as an effort to scuttle the ongoing process of merger of the bank with the state cooperative bank.
“The Rs 40,000 crore strong state cooperative bank can easily take a burden f Rs 900 crore and hence the CCB can be merged with it. I hope the proposal in this regard would soon be presented before the RBI and if RBI agrees to it the account holders would get back their money within a month,” Adsul said when asked about the posters put up across the city.
“This appears to be an attempt to derail the merger process,” he added.
The City Cooperative bank has 10 branches in the city and most of its account holders come from the labour class, many of whom are now elderly citizen who have put their hard-earned life savings into the bank, said Chetan Madan of the association of bank account holders.