Former managing director of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, Joy Thomas, has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days by Mumbai's Esplanade court. Thomas was presented before the court after his police custody ended on Thursday. The court also sent to police custody former bank director S. Surjit Singh Arora till October 22.
While Arora was picked up by the police on Wednesday, Thomas was arrested on October 4 for allegedly colluding with promoters of Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) and causing losses to the tune of Rs 4,355.43 crore to PMC bank.
As probe deepened into the scam, it was found that Joy Thomas had converted to Islam and adopted the name Junaid Khan to get married to his second wife and accumulated properties in Pune under the new name since 2012 after their marriage.
Meanwhile, the police have identified and attached four flats owned by Thomas in Mumbai and Thane. The Enforcement Directorate on Monday said it has seized and identified assets worth Rs 3,830 crore, including private jets and a yacht, in connection with its probe in the PMC Bank money laundering case.
Extension of Thomas's custody came a day after a court on Wednesday remanded two top HDIL officials and PMC Bank's former chairman in judicial custody in connection with the multi-crore scam at the bank. The three accused—HDIL chairman and managing director Rakesh Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan and PMC Bank's former chairman Waryam Singh—were remanded in judicial custody till October 23 by Metropolitan Magistrate S.G. Shaikh as their custody ended on Wednesday.
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The Wadhawans were arrested on October 3, while Singh was held on October 5 for their alleged involvement in the Rs 4,355 crore scam at the PMC Bank.
After the scam was unearthed at the bank, which has deposits of over Rs 11,000 crore, the Reserve Bank of India last month appointed an administrator over it, and capped withdrawals at Rs 1,000. On Monday evening, the withdrawal cap was hiked to Rs 40,000
The EOW earlier told the court that bank officials replaced 44 loan accounts of HDIL with 21,049 fictitious accounts, to camouflage huge loan defaults by the real estate group which landed the bank in the current crisis.
