Court grants pre-arrest bail to New India Co-operative Bank's ex CEO in cheating case

Mumbai, Jul 8 (PTI) A court here has granted pre-arrest bail to former CEO of the New India Co-operative Bank Ltd, Abhimany Bhoan, in a cheating and criminal breach of trust case, saying prima facie there was no material to show his role in the alleged crime.
His anticipatory bail plea was allowed by Additional Sessions Judge N G Shukla on July 5. The detailed order was made available on Tuesday.
The accused is already in judicial custody since February following his arrest in another related case, probed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai.
In the case at hand, the prosecution alleged that while serving as the bank's CEO, Bhoan along with the bank's chairman Ranjit Bhanu (deceased) and vice-chairman Gauri Ranjit Bhanu, accepted a one-time settlement (OTS) proposal from Percept Group of Companies of Rs 61.34 crore for the company's outstanding loan amount of Rs 79.90 crore.
The settlement allegedly caused the bank a wrongful loss of Rs 18.56 crore, it said.
The police further alleged that Bhoan and co-accused in the case received Rs 6.37 crore in their bank accounts from the company in exchange for accepting the OTS proposal.
Hence, the FIR came to be lodged against Bhoan and other accused under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy.
Bhoan's advocate, Wesley Moneza, contended that the accused was appointed as the CEO in 2019 and had no role in accepting the OTS proposal.
He highlighted that previous OTS applications by Percept Group were rejected by the Board of Directors and Bhoan himself.
The OTS in contention was accepted on October 19, 2023, as per the RBI guidelines issued on June 8, 2023, the advocate submitted.
He further contended that there was no chance of recovering the loan by auctioning mortgage property, and hence, OTS was accepted by the board of directors.
There was no cheating and wrongful loss to the bank, the lawyer said.
The court noted the investigating officer had not sought Bhoan's custodial interrogation despite him being in judicial custody in another crime. Hence, it seems that the police do not really require Bhoan's custodial interrogation, the court said.
The judge held that in the instant case, the accused as CEO had placed the OTS proposal given by Percept Group Companies before the board meeting.
"Prima facie, there is no material showing role of applicant in taking decision of according approval to said proposal," the court ruled, while allowing his plea.
Earlier this year, the New India Cooperative Bank was hit by an alleged Rs 122 crore embezzlement of funds by top management, and has been under an RBI-appointed administrator since then.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)