Bombay high Court denies bail to Four who siphoned funds for farmers

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has rejected bail applications of four persons accused of allegedly siphoning around `3 crore, which was meant for drought-affected farmers by creating fake accounts of farmers. The accused include the tehsildar of a taluka in Satara and branch manager of ICICI bank.

The court, while rejecting the application, held that bank statement of State Bank of India and Chaitanya Rural Non-Agriculturist Co-operative Credit Society had clarified that the accused were involved in the said crime.

According to the bail application, one Dadasaheb Kamble, sub-divisional officer, Khatav division, lodged a report at the police station alleging that Rs 2,92, 95, 489 was not disbursed in favour of drought-affected farmers, but was misappropriated by forging and fabricating documents by creating bogus list and for the purpose of personal benefit of the accused.

According to the proscution, Amol Kamble — who was the tehsildar at Vaduj taluka, Satara — had prepared a list of non-existing farmers and created fictitious accounts in August 2017 with the help of Rakesh Naidu, branch manager, ICICI bank; Sunil Kanse, branch manager of Karad Merchant Co-operative Society; Shailendra Deshpande, branch manager of Chaitanya Rural Non-Agriculturist Co-operative Credit Society, who had misappropriated funds.

The prosecution claimed that a substantial amount was disbursed to the affected farmers and it was only at the time of disbursement of the last instalment that false records and fraudulent withdrawals were made.

The accused had denied the charges and stated that they were falsely implicated in the case.

The court after hearing both the sides said that the said funds were allocated for disbursement to drought-affected farmers and the claimants had given their account numbers but while preparing the list, bogus account numbers were mentioned and the amount was misappropriated by the accused.