Varsha Raut wife of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has been summoned by Enforcement Directorate for a questioning round on 29 December in connection with PMC Bank Scam.
Varsha Raut had already skipped previous two notices on the ground of health concerns and this is the third summon issued to Varsha Raut.
She has been summoned under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
As per the official sources, the ED wants to question Varsha Raut concerning “receipt” of some funds that were allegedly siphoned from the bank.
A case under PMLA has been filed by the ED to investigate the alleged loan fraud in the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank in October last year against the Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), its promoters Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan and his son Sarang Wadhawan, its former chairman Waryam Singh and ex-managing director Joy Thomas.
The ED took into notice of an FIR by Mumbai Police Economic Offences Wing for allegedly causing “wrongful loss, prima facie to the tune of ₹4,355 crore to PMC Bank, and corresponding gains to themselves”. against them.
Shiv Sena had earlier professed that central investigating agencies have been targeting them unfairly.
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Former BJP leader Eknath Khadse, who recently joined Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has also been summoned by the ED for questioning on December 30 in Mumbai in connection with a money laundering case linked to a land deal in Pune’s Bhosri area.
Following a scam, several restrictions were imposed by the RBI on the fraud-hit PMC Bank including on withdrawals by customers. Several protests were held by the depositors demanding their money back.
For reconstruction of the bank PMC has invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from the potential investors.
After detection of certain financial irregularities, hiding and misreporting of loans given to real estate developer HDIL, the RBI had superseded the board of PMC and placed it under various regulatory restrictions in September 2019.
Its dealings with HDIL were over ₹6,500 crore or 73 per cent of its total loan book size of ₹8,880 crore as of September 19, 2019.
In June this year, the RBI had extended the regulatory restrictions on the cooperative bank by another six months till December 22, 2020.
As of March 31, 2020, PMC Bank’s total deposits stood at ₹10,727.12 crore and total advances at ₹4,472.78 crore. Gross NPA of the bank stood at ₹3,518.89 crore as on end-March.
The share capital of the bank is ₹292.94 crore. During 2019-20, it registered a net loss of ₹6,835 crore and has a negative net worth of ₹5,850.61 crore.
