Pune: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Pune police on Saturday filed an application in the special court to withdraw the case against three top officials of Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) in the DS Kulkarni scam case.
The police stated in their application that there is no sufficient evidence to prosecute Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Ravindra Marathe, Executive Director Rajendra Gupta and former CMD Sushil Muhnot.
“They did not accept money from investors and were not part of a conspiracy by the main accused (Kulkarni). Their action (of granting loan) was part of the normal business transaction as the company has 109 accounts and had been their main bank for years. The company had also repaid some loan taken earlier,” states the application filed under Section 169 (release of accused when evidence deficient) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Though asking them to be relieved of the criminal conspiracy charge, the EOW stated that the action of bank officials comes under ‘imprudent business decision’ as they erred in following directions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) as well as the Central government.
However, the police have not submitted any report about the fourth accused zonal manager Nityanand Deshpande.
According to the police report, Bank of Maharashtra was part of a consortium which included SBI, Syndicate Bank, Vijaya Bank, Union Bank, UBI and IDBI to grant
Rs 600 crore for Dream City project of DSK. The BoM was to grant Rs 100 crore and while disbursing the amount, the officials did not follow the laid down guidelines. As per the charge sheet filed against DS Kulkarni, his wife Hemanti, son Shirish and other accused persons, around 35,000 people were cheated of Rs 2,043 crore.
