Rs 512 crore bank fraud case: Court orders auction of sports academy, land parcel of ex-MLA

A special anti-money-laundering court has ordered the 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.

The 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 a legislator from Uran once.

A total of 87 properties, including some ancestral assets of Patil, were attached under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, by Navi Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is also probing a money-laundering case linked to the fraud, has dual attachment to some of these properties.

Special PMLA Judge Satyanarayan Navander on Tuesday ordered the release of these attached properties, allowing a plea by 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 the 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 of Rs 512.54 crore in the Panvel-headquartered Karnala bank.