Cops file closure report for BoM official’s discharge

PUNE: The economic offences wing (EOW) of the Pune police on Monday filed a closure report in the special MPID court seeking discharge of Nityanand Deshpande, the zonal manager of the Bank of Maharashtra (BoM), from the case of allegedly disbursing crores of rupees in loans to DSK Developers Limited (DSKDL) without following proper procedure and in violation of guidelines of the RBI.
Investigating officer ACP Nilesh More told TOI, “We have filed the closure report and the court will take a decision on the same.”

Deshpande’s lawyer Shailesh Mhaske said, “The court of special MPID judge D G Murumkar has directed notice to be issued to original complainant Jitendra Mulekar for the latter’s written say on the report and has kept the matter for a final hearing on April 22.”

Deshpande was among the four senior BoM officials arrested in June 20, 2018, during the investigation of the alleged Rs 2,091-crore economic fraud by jailed developer D S Kulkarni alias DSK and his group of companies. All the four officials were released on bail on June 27, 2018. The BoM is the only nationalised bank, which has its head office in Pune.

On January 21, the court had accepted the police’s closure report of October 20, 2018, for discharge of the other three bank officials — the then MD and CEO Ravindra Marathe, former executive director Rajendra Gupta and former CMD Sushil Muhnot — on the grounds that it was a case of imprudent business decision and there was no criminal intent behind disbursal of loans.

Mhaske said, “Since the beginning of the case, we have been arguing that there was no role of our client and the provisions of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act were not applicable to the bank officials. The police’s closure report once again confirms that there is no evidence against our client.”