Mid-Day

The Samata Nagar police in Kandivali have arrested the director (Shankar Yewale) and a clerk (Ramesh Taware) of the Laxmibaug Sahakari Patpedhi Society for illegally transferring Rs 60,000 from an auto rickshaw driver’s account to the director’s account. Another director of the society (identified as More) is absconding. The auto driver (Rajaram Chavan), a resident of Vadar Pada, Kandivali (east), had deposited Rs 2 lakh with the society as a fixed deposit (FD).

On November 8, 2010, he went to the society and sought a loan on the FD. Yewale then allegedly told him his account had been sealed after Rs 20,000 was found to have been illegally transferred from it. he added that the loan could be sanctioned only after he deposited the same amount.

Suspicious, Chavan managed to get his account’s statement from the society and learnt that the amount had actually been transferred into Yewale’s account through a fake voucher. Taware had facilitated the transfer and More had given the permission.

Chavan then approached the Samata Nagar police but was initially told not to file a complaint over “such a paltry amount.”Finally after two years on March 7 the police registered an FIR (copy available with SMD) and arrested Yewale and Taware. “We have arrested them under sections 409, 420, 465, 467, 468 and 34 of IPC for cheating and forgery. The Bandra court has remanded them to police custody till March 11,” said the PSI in charge of the case.