Mumbai Police arrest two HDIL directors in PMC bank case

Economic Offence Wing of Mumbai Police on Thursday arrested Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) Directors Sarang Wadhawan and Rakesh Wadhwan. They are accused of loan default in connection with Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank case.

Both of them were called for interrogation today. They were arrested after they failed to cooperate in the investigation.

Ten of 44 accounts which led to PMC Bank falling in debt were linked to HDIL. Personal accounts of Sarang and Wadhwan were among these ten accounts.

On September 30, EOW of Mumbai Police had registered an FIR against senior officials of HDIL and PMC bank in connection with a fraud of over Rs 4,355 crores.

"EOW has formed a special investigation team for the probe. The FIR has been registered on the complaint given by one Jasbir Singh Matta," police said in a press note.

According to the police, PMC bank officials gave loans to HDIL between 2008 and 2019 despite no repayment of the previous loans.

The FIR was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court or public register), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

Suspended MD Joy Thomas had on September 28 admitted that the bank did not report the financial exposure to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for over six years.

RBI had, on September 26, increased the withdrawal limit from Rs 1,000 to 10,000 after several bank account holders protested against the move outside its branch in Mumbai.