New India Bank case: EOW conducts polygraph test on ex-GM Hitesh Mehta

The Mumbai police on Tuesday conducted a polygraph test on New India Cooperative Bank Limited's former general manager and head of accounts, Hitesh Mehta, who is the prime accused in the Rs 122 crore embezzlement case, officials said.

A team of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the police will also visit the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and meet senior officers soon to collect information about why the central bank conducted an inspection on February 12, which uncovered the discrepancies, and not prior to that, an official said. "The polygraph test, also called a lie detector test, was conducted on Mehta at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Mumbai's Kalina this afternoon," he said.  In the last few years, Mehta is the first accused on whom the Mumbai EOW has conducted a polygraph test, he said.

"The test lasted three hours, and as many as 50 questions were asked to Mehta, who is the prime accused in the case," he said. The officials had prepared a questionnaire, and forensic physiology experts asked the questions to him, he said. "The test reports are expected to come out before Monday (March 17), and will be presented to the court," he said.  The investigators will assess Mehta's response to particular questions, which are important for connecting the dots in the probe, he said. The EOW team, which is probing the Rs 122 crore embezzlement case, has launched a hunt against the four wanted accused. Among them, former chairman of the bank, Hiren Bhanu, and his wife Gauri Bhanu, have already fled out of the country, he said.  "As the probe is going on, the EOW team led by a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) will visit the RBI and will meet senior officers in the coming days. The investigators will ask the reason why the RBI inspection of the New India Co-operative Bank was held on February 12 and not prior to that," the official said. The bank's former vice chairman and trustee Gauri Bhanu left the country on February 10, he said, adding that Hiten Bhanu escaped on January 26. "The EOW will investigate whether the Bhanus had any idea about the inspection by the RBI team," he said.