Published on: Aug 08, 2025 07:12 am IST
Mumbai Police’s EOW to file a supplementary charge-sheet in ₹122-crore New India Cooperative Bank fraud against three auditors for negligence in audits.
New India Coop Bank fraud
MUMBAI: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police will be filing a supplementary charge-sheet in the ₹122-crore New India Cooperative Bank fraud case. Police said the charge-sheet will be filed against three chartered accountants, who had allegedly carried out statutory as well as concurrent audits in the bank, and had failed to notice that funds had been misappropriated.
“We will be filing a charge-sheet against Abhijeet Deshmukh, partner at Sanjay Rane and Associates; Subhash Mogul, senior partner at SI Mogul and Company; and Laxminarayan Nayak of Shinde Nayak and Associates,” said a police officer. Police said the chartered accountants had carried various audits at the bank and even given it an ‘A’ grade.
“We have found negligence on the part of the auditors. Instead of carrying out the audits properly, they relied on the main accused, Hitesh Mehta, the general manager (accounts), who had been spiriting away ₹122 crore from the bank’s cash reserves since 2019. Mehta would tell the auditors that everything was all right and provide them fake documents. They believed him as he would clear their bills,” said the police officer.
Police said they have attached the audit reports and a certificate issued by the auditors, assigning the bank an ‘A’ grade. They said a charge-sheet will be also filed against Pawan Jaiswal, the ninth accused who was arrested recently.
The first charge-sheet, 12,000 pages long, was filed in May, naming ten accused. Police said former chairperson the bank, Hiren Bhanu, and his wife Gauri, have also been named as accused.
