PMC bank scam: MD had a secret cash window for the Wadhawans

The Economic Offences Wing EOW of the Mumbai police in its 32000page charge sheet filed on Friday has revealed that apart from the heavy loan and over draft facility given to them former MD Joy Thomas had opened a cash facility counter at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative PMC Bank HQ only for HDIL officialsBesides this special treatment he had also strictly told the department concerned not to maintain a record of the cash given However some of the staff maintained records of the cash given to the Wadhawans Waryam Singh as well as the cash taken by Thomas in three diaries According to the charge sheet the accounts department of the PMC Bank used to give cash to HDIL and former chairman of the PMC Bank Waryam SinghThomas himself would take cash from the centralised cash vault of the bank The managers who provided the cash were specifically told by Thomas and joint general managers of the accounts department to not maintain a record or make a formal entry in the account number of the centralised cash vault of the cash given to HDIL and that taken by Thomas and Waryam SinghPMC Bank account holders protest at Azad Maidan File picThree books of recordsAs per the charge sheet despite strict instructions from their bosses these managers of the Accounts and Credit Departments maintained records of the payments given to Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan Waryam Singh and Thomas in three booksAfter 2017 the managers were told to maintain a record of the cash and make proper entries Employees of HDIL used to visit the PMC Banks headquarters and collect cash on behalf of their promoters The EOW has named the managers as witnesses in the caseManipulation of recordsmidday has earlier reported how the directors of PMC Bank who have been arrested in the matter would shelter behind the board of directors meeting saying the HDIL loans were never discussed at these meetings and they were not aware of the financial irregularities taking placeBut the SIT of the EOW in its investigation has found that the minutes of the meetings were tampered with and the same was confirmed in the forensic audit report of PMC Bank According to the charge sheet minutes of multiple board meetings of PMC Bank are not availableCharge sheet mentionsIt is mentioned in the charge sheet that documents such as notices to board members for the meetings as well as the attendance register of the board of directors is not available The charge sheet also says that pages are missing from the minutes of meetings It was revealed that certain pages were manually removed and some were inserted in the minutes books The pages added were not serially numberedThe charge sheet also says that notices issued to the board of directors for meetings were unsigned There was also a mismatch in the attendance register of the meeting vs the minutes It was noted that the directors present in the meeting as per the minutes were shown as absent as per the attendance register and vice versa The charge sheet also noted discrepancies between details on sanction letters of HDIL and the minutesIn connivanceRakesh Wadhawan started banking with PMC in 198687 after it was established in 1984 The bank was rescued by Wadhawan on many occasions by providing capital In 2004 the Wadhawans deposited a large amount to bail out the cashstrapped bank Joy Thomas was associated with the bank from the start and always remained under obligation to Rakesh Wadhawan and provided every possible financial support to him Waryam Singh was known to Rakesh Wadhawan since 1970 They were in college together and started a land development project at Palghar Singh was inducted in the PMC Bank board of directors to ensure prompt loans to HDIL He was also a director in many HDIL group of companiesSurjit Singh Arora is associated with PMC Bank since 1990 as one of the directors and runs a chain of hotels called Mini Punjab Financial transactions were found between HDIL and Mini Punjab during the course of investigationFraud started in 2008According to the charge sheet the fraud started in 2008 and from 2011 the HDIL group of companies started defaulting But PMC Bank did not show HDIL as a nonperforming asset NPA The bank kept granting unsecured loans to HDIL and did evergreening of their loan accounts Despite the default officials of credit audit and IT departments prepared forged records to conceal the real position of HDILs loan liability Bank officials were compelled to disclose the fraud after the whistleblower came into the picture Instead of initiating legal proceedings the directors kept conducting meetings with the Wadhawans to convince them to paytheir duesCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates