The discharge petitions filed by two accused of the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-Operative Bank (MMCB) scam is proving to be an obstacle to the early start of the trial in the case in which the stockbroker, Ketan Parekh, is the main accused.
The discharge petitions filed by two accused of the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-Operative Bank (MMCB) scam is proving to be an obstacle to the early start of the trial in the case in which the stockbroker, Ketan Parekh, is the main accused.
The two accused-the then branch manager of the bank Jagdish Pandya, and a Ketan Parekh aide Dharmendra Doshi - had earlier filed a discharge petition before the special CBI magistrate court. Pandya had sought discharge on the ground that he had played no role in the scam but had just obeyed the orders of his bosses. Doshi, meanwhile, has stated that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated in the case.
When the petition of the two accused came up for hearing recently, the bank's lawyer, Ajitsinh Jadeja, filed his objection to their plea. "We have opposed their application as there is a technical difficulty. The CBI court does not have the jurisdiction to hear the petitions," Jadeja said. The court has posted further hearing on the petition to May 30, he added.
The CBI, however, has held that all the accused in the case had connived to defraud the bank of Rs1,030 crore by extending loans to Ketan Parekh and others against all norms set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Besides Ketan Parekh, the central probe agency has booked ex-chairman of the bank Ramesh Parikh, ex-CEO of the bank Devendra Pandya, and nine others, including manager at MMCB Jagdish Pandya in the bank fraud case.
Earlier, in April, the Gujarat high court had ordered the special CBI magistrate court to dispose of the case as early as possible. But CBI court sources said that it cannot start trial without disposing of Pandya and Doshi’s petitions. But the process to start the trial would begin as soon as their applications are disposed of, sources added.
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