Rs 512 cr coop bank fraud case Court orders auction of two properties of former MLA

Mumbai, Jul 24 (PTI) A special court has ordered auction of properties linked to former MLA Vivekanand Shankar Patil to facilitate repayment to creditors of a cooperative bank based in Panvel in Maharashtra's Raigad district.
These properties, comprising a multi-acre sports academy and a land parcel in Panvel, have been attached by probe agencies in an alleged fraud of over Rs 512 crore at the Karnala Nagari Sahakari (cooperative) Bank.
Patil, the prime accused in the case, represented Panvel as a Peasants and Workers Party of India MLA for three terms and was legislator from Uran once.
A total of 87 properties, including some ancestral property of Patil, were attached under the MPID Act by Navi Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing.

The Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing a money laundering case linked to the fraud, too has dual attachment to some of these properties.
Special PMLA Judge Satyanarayan Navander on July 22 ordered release of these attached properties, allowing a plea of the bank's liquidator.
The liquidator had sought release of Karnala Sports Academy and a plot of land, both located in Panvel taluka, to discharge the bank's liabilities to its creditors, including depositors.
All the parties, including the accused, had given their no objection to proceed with auction of these properties.
Given the consensus among all parties, the court deemed it proper to make the attachment of these two properties absolute. It then directed the immediate commencement of the auction process in the interest of the bank's depositors.
The ED case is based on an FIR registered against Patil and 75 others in February 2020 by the Economic Offences Wing, which had alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs 512.54 crore in the Panvel-headquartered Karnala co-operative bank.

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