71-year-old PMC director applies for anticipatory bail

Mumbai: A 71-year-old man, who is the one of the directors and part of the executive committee of the scam-hit Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) Bank since its inception in 1984, has filed an anticipatory bail application in the sessions court on Tuesday.

Surjit Singh Narang in his anticipatory bail application has claimed that he was neither aware of the day-to-day affairs of the bank nor of the loans given by the bank to the HDIL group.

Narang’s plea mentioned that the first information report (FIR) registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police did not name him, but it was “wide enough” to include him.

According to the applicant, he was one of the promoters and shareholders of the bank, but not involved in its day-to-day operations. He said that there was nothing to show that he was connected with alleged “falsification of records and concealment of information” (to hide these loans).

He also mentioned that recently he had suffered a paralytic attack and was hospitalised for two months.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police has arrested five persons in the Rs 4,355 crore PMC Bank scam, including promoters of realty group HDIL and top bank officials.

As per the EOW, the bank management concealed from the banking regulator’s scrutiny huge loan defaults by HDIL group firms, replacing 44 loan accounts of the group with 21,049 fictitious accounts. Besides Narang, another director of the bank, Parmeet Sodhi, has also sought anticipatory bail. Both the pleas would be heard on November 8.