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New India Cooperative Bank's general manager held in ₹122 cr ‘scam’ | How did it unfold?
Hitesh Pravinchand Mehta is accused of withdrawing ₹122 crore from the lender’s Prabhadevi and Goregaon branches.
A Mumbai holiday court on Sunday remanded Hitesh Mehta, the general manager and head of accounts of the New India Cooperative Bank, in police custody till February 21 in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds from the bank.
Mehta, 57, is accused of withdrawing ₹122 crore from the lender’s Prabhadevi and Goregaon branches.
He has allegedly confessed to the crime and told the police he had been taking cash from the bank’s safes since the pandemic.
How the alleged fraud was unearthed
The alleged fraud came to light earlier this week on Wednesday after a team of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) went for an audit of New India Cooperative Bank’s Prabhadevi head office.
“They asked all senior officers of the bank to be present at the time of the audit and called for the keys to the bank’s safe. Senior officials, including the accounts head, Hitesh Mehta, were present during the audit. He and his team are responsible for filing TDS (Tax Deducted at Source), GST (Goods and Services Tax) and maintaining cash,” a police officer told Hindustan Times.
As the money in the safe was counted, the RBI team gathered all the employees and told them that ₹112 crore in cash was missing.
“They started questioning employees about the missing cash. However, nobody could give any satisfactory answer. Later, it was found that cash was missing from the bank’s Goregaon branch as well. In total, ₹122 crore was missing from the bank’s safes,” added the officer.
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Devashish Ghosh, the bank’s chief accounting officer, then started gathering information about how the cash might have gone missing.
Later in the evening, Mehta went to meet the RBI officials and allegedly confessed to the crime.
Subsequently, a case against Mehta and his unknown associates was registered.
The bank manager was booked under sections 316 (5) (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 61 (2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
RBI's action
In light of Mehta's alleged confession, the RBI on Thursday imposed several restrictions on the lender, including on the withdrawal of funds by depositors, citing supervisory concerns emanating from the recent material developments in the bank, and to protect the interest of its depositors.
A day later, it superseded the cooperative bank's board for a year and appointed an administrator to manage its affairs.
