PMC Bank scam: Absconding director arrested

Daljit Singh Bal, one of the main accused in the Punjab and Maharashtra cooperative Bank scam (PMC scam), who has been on the run since September 2019, was arrested at Raxual near India-Nepal border on Thursday noon. He has been kept at Raxaul police station, East Champaran district of Bihar.

Police sources told The Daily Guardian that Bal, who was one of the directors of the bank and the main accused in the Rs 4,315 crore scam, was attempting to cross to Nepal from where he was planning to escape to Canada.

Raxaul police said Bal was caught 200 metres away from Nepal border on the Bihar side. The EOW of the Mumbai police, which is probing the multi-crore scam, had issued a lookout notice against Bal and 10 former directors of the bank.

In November 2019, Bal, was located at Amritsar in Punjab, but he managed to flee after taking an anticipatory bail from a court in Amritsar on the same day the EOW team was supposed to arrest him. One of the bank’s directors has already fled to

Canada. Dr Parmeet Sodhi who was on the loans committee and the loan recovery committee of PMC Bank fled to Canada just days before the fraud came to light.

The FIRs filed in connection with the PMC Bank case have mentioned the names of all the 14 directors who were on board at the time of the collapse. The fraud at PMC Bank came to light in September 2019 after the RBI discovered that the bank had allegedly created fictitious accounts to hide over Rs 6,700 crore in loans extended to the almost-bankrupt HDIL. Later, the RBI took over the board of directors of the bank and put regulatory restrictions and directed the closure of business of PMC in September 2019.