Wadhwans and Singh in police custody till Oct 16

A city court on Monday extended police custody of two directors of Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) and the former chairperson of Punjab and Maharashtra

A city court on Monday extended police custody of two directors of Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) and the former chairperson of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank till October 16.

Last week, two directors of HDIL, Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan, and the former chairperson of PMC Bank, Waryam Singh, were arrested in connection with the ₹4,355-crore fraud at PMC Bank.

The three were among the key accused named in the first information report filed on September 30.

On Monday, Mumbai Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) sought to extend the three accuseds’ police custody on the ground that more information may be extracted from the Wadhawans and Singh.

The Wadhawans’ legal counsel did not object to the plea to extend police custody.

“In the future, EOW should not get a chance to argue that it didn’t get enough remand,” said the lawyer.

Additional chief magistrate SG Shaikh asked the EOW to submit their findings from the past 12 days that the accused have been in police custody. Senior EOW inspector Kishore Parab said new details were emerging every day.

After perusing the EOW’s application, Shaikh extended the trio’s police custody till October 16.

The PMC Bank fraud is the biggest banking fraud of the year so far.

According to the EOW’s probe, the bank unlawfully granted loans to the HDIL group of companies, causing a loss of ₹ 4,355 crore to the bank’s depositors.

So far, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized assets worth ₹3,830 crore in the PMC Bank case.