Ravindra Marathe back as CEO of Bank of Maharashtra after clean chit

NP NEWS 24 ONLINE – The Bank of Maharashtra on Friday restored “functional responsibilities” of its Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer Ravindra Marathe and Executive Director R K Gupta. On October 21, Pune police had told a court here that it did not find sufficient evidence against Marathe and other top officials of the nationalised bank, arrested in connection with a cheating case registered against city-based developer D S Kulkarni.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing) Nilesh More had filed a report before special EOW judge D G Murumkar seeking discharge for the accused.

“Board in its meeting held on November 2 restored the functional responsibilities of MD & CEO Marathe, Executive Director R K Gupta,” said a BoM release here Friday. In June, the Pune EOW arrested Marathe and others for allegedly misusing their official positions for sanctioning a loan to Kulkarni’s construction firm, DSKDL.

Following their arrest, Bank of Maharashtra had divested Marathe and Gupta of all their powers. On October 21, Pune police had filed a closure report, saying the officials had sanctioned loans as part of “normal banking transaction”.

“We have filed a closure report under Section 169 of the CrPC as we haven’t found any evidence against the three bank officials,” Pune Police Commissioner K Venkatesham had said.

Three BoM officials — Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Ravindra Marathe, Executive Director Rajendra Gupta and former CMD Sushil Muhnot — were arrested on June 20, along with zonal manager, Nityanand Deshpande. These arrests in June were made in connection with a case registered in October 2017 against developer Deepak Kulkarni, his wife Hemanti Kulkarni, son Shirish and others in the Rs 2,043.18-crore fraud.

All accused officials including former CMD Sushil Muhnot are out on bail. “The restoration of functional responsibilities to Marathe and Gupta is a welcome move for the bank which has also shown good results in its Q2 of FY 2018-19 after 10 quarters,” said the release. “Restoration of functional responsibilities of Bank’s Officials has certainly boosted the morale of not only the staff of Bank of Maharashtra but also whole banking fraternity,” it added.

Today the BOM informed, “The Board has restored the functional responsibilities of Marathe and Gupta. The decision has boosted the morale of not only the staff of Bank of Maharashtra but also whole banking fraternity as such.”