In the wake of news of Rs 300 crore scam in A P Mahesh Bank, the Telangana High Court has issued notices to the Central Registrar, RBI and others for filing their replies.
It bears recall that Mahesh Cooperative Bank Shareholders Welfare Association has filed a petition in the High Court alleging a scam of Rs 300 crore by the Board. The matter is to be heard again on February 8, reports the daily New Indian Express.
Supreme Court advocate Diljit Singh Ahluwalia who is representing the depositors, submitted his plea in the court asking to suspend the board of directors of the bank and to appoint a retired Supreme Court or High court judge as an administrator.
Passing through a longish wait, the election results of AP Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank were finally given the green signal by the court to be announced on Friday. Ramesh Kumar Bung, a well-known face in the cooperative circles was declared elected unopposed as the Chairman of the UCB on Sunday.
Talking to Indian Cooperative soon after the results Bung said, “Last Friday court has asked RO to announce the result. After the announcement we won the 10 seats out of 15 seats and the other five seats were won by our rival’s panel.”
“For the third term I am elected as the Chairman of the Bank. Earlier I was the Chairman for two terms i.e. 2005-2010 and 2010-2015″, Bung added proudly.
In the first hearing held in the case related to the elections of AP Mahesh Urban Cooperative Bank, the Telangana High Court has directed the Returning Officer to resume the counting of votes but barred him from announcing the results.
The RO, who faces disciplinary action for abruptly stopping the counting, has to submit the results after counting is over, in a sealed envelope to the court on Monday.
The case came up for hearing on Thursday. While hearing the petition of the Returning officer and the outgoing senior Vice-Chairman Ramesh Kumar Bung, the court ordered counting of votes of the last four booths and submitting the result in a seal packed envelope.
The murky politics at the AP Mahesh Bank witnessed during the elections and subsequent counting of votes, have finally landed the UCB in the court. In a writ filed by the opposition parties, a demand to appoint an Administrator has been made. Sadly, the ego-clashes of co-operators have brought a successful UCB to a halt.
The whole issue started with Bhagwati Baldawa, the Chairman candidate from the Founder’s Panel complaining that her voters were not allowed to cast their votes due to the shortage of EVMs. Out of 34 k members of the bank only around 13.5k members could cast their votes, claimed Baldawa.
The counting of votes for the election of AP Mahesh Urban Cooperative Bank, which was supposed to be concluded on Monday has been stopped due to the ruckus created by the opposition panel.
The voting was held on 20th December through EVM machines but due to deployment of less number of voting machines, members could not cast their votes. And out of 34 k members of the bank only around 13.5k members could cast their votes, said Bhagwati Baldawa, the Chairman Candidate from the Founder’s Panel.
The counting of votes was done till 6th round but in the last round the counting was not done. It started at 10:30 A.M. on Monday morning. Over 70 EVMs were set up in different polling booths but the counting of votes of 10 EVMs has been stopped.