Maha Cong MLA Sunil Kedar convicted in Nagpur co-op bank's Rs 150cr scam

Nagpur: In a huge embarrassment for the Congress, its senior MLA and ex-minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime, Sunil Kedar, and five others on Friday were found guilty in the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) scam of around Rs 150 crore.

Along with Kedar, who was the then NDCCB Chairman, others found guilty are Ketan Sheth, Nandkishore Trivedi, Ashok Chaudhary, Subodh Bhandari – all from Mumbai, and Amit Verma of Ahmedabad.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Pekhale-Purkar has acquitted another three accused in the case involving political bigwigs that continued for nearly 21 years from 2002, while some other related cases are still pending in different states.

The arguments between the prosecution and defence on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to all the convicts, including the Saoner MLA Kedar, are proceeding before the court.

Kedar and others remained present along with their legal teams in the packed courtroom under tight security as the court pronounced its guilty verdict on the six accused and acquitted three others.

Among various charges, Kedar and others were accused of flouting norms by diverting the cooperative bank's funds mostly belonging to farmers, to several private entities for purchasing government securities which led to substantial losses to the NDCCB.

Some of the companies which had allegedly benefited included Home Trade Ltd., Indramani Merchants Pvt. Ltd., Syndicate Management Services, Century Dealers Pvt. Ltd., Giltej Management Services, which failed to deliver the government securities to the NDCCB and it incurred huge losses.

The police probe found that these companies neither delivered the stocks nor made any refund of the monies due to the bank, after which the case was transferred to the state Crime Investigation Department (CID).