Arora to stay in EOW custody till Oct 22

A magistrate court on Thursday remanded a former director of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, Surjit Singh Arora, in the economic offences wing’s

A magistrate court on Thursday remanded a former director of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, Surjit Singh Arora, in the economic offences wing’s (EOW) custody till October 22. So far, Arora is the only one of 12 directors on the board of the fraud-hit PMC Bank to have been arrested. Former managing director of PMC Bank, Joy Thomas, was sent to judicial custody for 14 days. Thomas is one of the key accused in the ₹4,355-crore alleged fraud at PMC Bank.

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Arora was arrested on Wednesday night and produced in court on Thursday. Public prosecutor Rajkumar Machewar said, “The custodial interrogation of the accused [Arora] is needed to know more of the bank’s internal deliberate overlooking on irregularities.”

Seeking Arora’s custody, investigating officer senior inspector Kishore Parab informed the court that Arora was on PMC Bank’s loan committee for three terms and was a director on the bank’s board for more than 10 years. The EOW alleged that Arora abused his official position to facilitate and cover up the ₹4,355-crore fraud carried out at the bank. During interrogation, Thomas had named Arora and said Arora had known about the loans granted to Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL).

The EOW further alleged that Arora had received crores of rupees from a company in the HDIL group. Appearing for Arora, advocate Rizwan Merchant contended that the first information report of the case had been filed on September 30 and did not mention Arora who was not summoned even once prior to his arrest.

EOW officials said Arora had switched off his phone and gone underground after the first set of arrests in the first week of October. Eventually, his location had been traced and he was arrested on Wednesday, added officials.

Merchant further submitted that the case is dependent on the documents and till date Arora does not have any documents in his possession (as they are all already with the EOW). Merchant also questioned why no other director had been arrested. To this, Parab said, “We are looking for other directors as all of them have gone underground. We will arrest them all.”

The EOW is on the lookout for 11 directors on PMC Bank’s board.