Mumbai, October 2
The suspended managing director of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, Joy Thomas, has blamed the auditors for the mess at the bank, accusing them of only “superficial auditing” the books of the now crippled lender due to “time constraints”.
In a five-page letter to the RBI dated September 21 after a Board member blew the lid on the fraud at PMC, which is among the top 10 urban cooperative banks, Thomas has confessed to the role of the top management, including a few board members, in hiding the actual NPA numbers and also the actual exposure to the bankrupt HDIL, which is stated to be around Rs 6,500 crore or over 73% of its total loan book of Rs 8,880 crore.
While Thomas has not named any auditor in the letter to the RBI written two days before the regulatory clampdown, which PTI has reviewed, according to its annual report for FY19, the bank had three auditors — Lakdawal & Co, Ashok Jayesh & Associates and DB Ketkar & Co since FY11.
The shallow auditing of the books of PMC by its statutory auditors was done as the ‘bank was growing’, Thomas claimed in the letter.
The letter of Thomas is part of the FIR filed by the Economic Offence Wing of the Mumbai Police on Monday. The FIR names Thomas, PMC chairman Waryam Singh and the promoters of the HDIL and related entities.
“Since the bank was growing the statutory auditors, due to their time constraints, were checking only the incremental advances and not the entire operations in all the accounts,” Thomas claimed in the letter. — PTI
ICAI seeks permission from RBI to check auditors’ role
- Chartered accountants’ apex body ICAI has sought information from the RBI and other authorities on the PMC Bank crisis to check whether any auditor was involved in the alleged financial irregularities at the lender
- The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has written to the Vigilance Department of the Reserve Bank of India and the Commissioner of Maharashtra Co-operative Societies in this regard
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