PMLA Court permits prime accused Waryam Singh in PMC bank scam to travel to Canada

A Mumbai court allowed Waryam Singh, accused in the ₹6,670 crore PMC Bank fraud, to travel to Canada from Aug 20 to Sep 9, with conditions on his travel details.

MUMBAI: A special PMLA court on Friday allowed Waryam Singh Kartar Singh, a prime accused in the ₹6,670 crore fraud at Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, to travel to Canada from August 20 to September 9.

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The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police registered an offence on September 30, 2019, in connection with the alleged fraud at PMC Bank, which has 137 branches in six states. Singh was arrested on October 5, 2019.

According to the RBI, PMC Bank masked 44 problematic loan accounts involving advances of ₹7,457.49 crore, mainly to Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL), by tampering with its core banking system, and these accounts were accessible only to limited staff members. The bank created 21,049 fictitious accounts to ensure its master data aligned with the loan disbursals.

Earlier, the Bombay high court had granted him bail primarily because Singh had already spent over 4 years and 3 months behind bars and still charges were not framed against the accused in the case therefore the trial was not likely to start soon. He was also directed not to leave Mumbai without prior permission from the trial court and to attend the trial regularly.

Singh filed an application before the PMLA court seeking permission to travel to Canada from August 20 to September 9. Senior police inspector of EOW strongly objected to Singh’s request based on of chances of him absconding since no itinerary had been submitted by him.

Judge A C DAGA, on Friday, allowed Singh’s application considering the nature of his application and the purpose of his travel, coupled with the fact that it will take time for trial to commence.

The court ordered Singh to furnish an itinerary of his travel with addresses of his residence in Canada, his phone numbers and his working E-mail ID to the Investigating Officer before leaving India along with a deposit of ₹1 lakh as security for his proposed travel.