A Mumbai court on Thursday refused bail to Hitesh Mehta, former General Manager of New India Cooperative Bank arrested in a ₹122 crore scam at the bank, and described him as the prime accused in the case.
Mehta, former General Manager and Head of Accounts at the bank, is the prime suspect in the alleged misappropriation of funds from the bank’s reserves over a period of five years.
Additional Sessions Iudge Vikram Jagdale, who heard the bail plea, noted that on perusal of the chargesheet in the case and police report it was clear that Mehta, who is in jail for more than a year, is the prime accused.
The former GM had prepared forged and false electronic records which included debit note and valuable bank bonds in order to siphon amounts to the tune of about ₹122 crore, the court said in its order while rejecting his bail plea.
On the contention of long incarceration, the court acknowledged that Mehta has been in jail since February 2025.
But the court remarked that it cannot be a ground to grant bail as “one cannot lose sight of the fact that in economic offenses it takes time to commence and conclude a trial when there are numerous accused and witnesses”.
Further the court cannot overlook the nature, magnitude and amount involved in the offence, the judge said.
How fraud was discovered?
The fraud case came to light after an inspection by Reserve Bank of India officers at the bank’s Prabhadevi office in central Mumbai. Rs.112 crore was missing from Bank.
The RBI officials conducted an inspection on February 12. The team included Deputy General Manager (DGM) Ravindran and officer Sanjay Kumar. The bank’s General Manager (GM), Assistant General Manager (AGM), and Head of Accounts, Hitesh Mehta, were also present during the audit.
The officials first checked the bank’s main safe, located on the third floor of the Prabhadevi office. Employee Atul Mhatre provided the keys to access it. Meanwhile, another RBI team inspected the Goregaon branch’s safe. After several hours of counting, the officials discovered a major difference between the actual cash available and the amount recorded in the bank’s books
Later that day, RBI officials summoned the bank’s senior employees and revealed that ₹122 crore in cash was missing. They warned the staff of serious consequences if they failed to disclose the whereabouts of the missing money.
Mr. Mehta was placed under arrest by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police after being questioned for more than three hours, an official said. Mr. Mehta will be produced before a local court on Sunday, the police official added.
The RBI had superseded the board of New India Cooperative Bank and appointed Shreekant, a former chief general manager of the State Bank of India (SBI), as the administrator to manage the bank’s affairs.
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