As Rakesh and Sarang allegedly did not co-operate with the officers and failed to give satisfactory answers, they were taken into custody.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested the promoters of Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL), Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan on Thursday in connection with the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank loan case. While Rakesh is the executive chairman of HDIL, Sarang is the managing director.
The duo, who were already named as accused in the FIR lodged by the police along with the bank’s suspended managing director Joy Thomas, appeared on Thursday before the EOW. As Rakesh and Sarang allegedly did not co-operate with the officers and failed to give satisfactory answers, they were taken into custody.
According to the sources in the EOW, both were untraceable for 48 hours after the FIR was lodged.
They were also not able to give convincing replies when asked about the disbursement of heavy loans given to their firm. They were also not able to justify how HDIL was not linked with the PMC bank loan case. As per the complaint filed by RBI administrator Jasbir Singh Matta, from 2008 till August 2019, the loans given to HDIL were not repaid and gradually it turned into a Non-Performing Asset (NPA).
The EOW also searched the residence of Waryam Singh, chairman of the PMC Bank, who was also on the board of HDIL for nine years between 2006 and 2015. He also held a 1.91% stake in the company during the said period.
Singh’s one Demat account, containing Rs 100 crore, has been frozen. In addition, HDIL’s properties worth Rs 3,500 crore have also been frozen and provisionally attached by EOW. The investigating agency suspects that this property was mortgaged to PMC Banks, going by the documents seized from the bank’s headquarters.
“The role of the Wadhawans’ in this case, which is cheating, is sufficient grounds for arrest,” said an EOW officer. “We are also verifying whether the same property was mortgaged to any other bank. Preliminary probe indicates that some PMC employees tampered with the bank’s software, which is the reason why 44 accounts mentioned in the FIR did not reflect in the banking system. All transactions from these 44 accounts are being scrutinized and if any suspicious matter is found, we will take action. We doubt that the employees of the bank were protecting these fraudulent accounts with some passwords, so it will not reflect in the system,” said an officer who requested anonymity.
Speaking about the future course of action against Thomas, a source said that teams of the EOW and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) are trying to search his location and as of now, he is missing. “Thomas is being searched and further investigation of the matter is underway,” the officer added.
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