After HDIL promoters, ex-MD of PMC Bank arrested

MUMBAI: Joy Thomas, the suspended managing director of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, was arrested in the Rs 4,355-crore cheating case involving the bank on Friday evening from a friend’s flat in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai. The hunt is now on for former bank chairman Waryam Singh.
“We had been looking for Thomas for a couple of days. He is now being interrogated and will be produced in court on Saturday,” said Rajvardhan Sinha, who heads the economic offences wing which is probing the case.The EOW has identified four flats belonging to Thomas in Khar, Thane, Airoli and Goregaon, and provisionally attached these. It is also looking into his bank details, said an officer.
An EOW team visited Thomas’s Thane residence three days ago but did not find him there. It pasted a notice outside his flat asking him to join the PMC Bank investigation.

PMC Bank was placed under restrictions by the RBI on September 25 after it emerged that loans to real estate developer HDIL (Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited) were not classified as bad loans through it was financially stressed. Later, it was found that thousands of fictitious accounts had been created and used to divert the money.
The EOW said all 21,049 fictitious accounts in the case were password-protected and operated by confidants of Thomas. “We have identified these people and are questioning them,” said an officer.
The EOW is likely to bring Thomas and his confidants face to face to “draw the correct picture” about the creation of fake accounts and diversion of money from these to HDIL chairman and managing director Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang (Sunny), who were arrested on Thursday.
On September 21, Thomas, who joined PMC Bank in 1987 as a general manager and was re-designated managing director in 1999, wrote in a letter to the RBI’s chief general manager about the bank’s links with the Wadhawans.

He wrote that their operations were mostly from Vasai, Virar and Palghar, where they had huge land banks; they used only PMC Bank to fund their land purchase and development; in connection with their business, their accounts would get overdrawn and thereafter would get cleared in due course. “In this process, our bank used to charge 18-24% interest from their accounts, and earned very good profit,” Thomas wrote to the RBI.
EOW teams are now hunting for former PMC Bank chairman Waryam Singh. “We carried out searches at the office and residence of the Wadhawans on Friday. We are looking for Singh at all possible places that he may visit. EOW is also recording statements of some bank officials,” said a source.