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 "superficially auditing" the books of the now-crippled lender due to "time constraints".
In a five-page letter to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) dated 21 September 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 percent 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 clamp down 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.
Emails from PTI sent to all these auditors did not elicit any replies even after 24 hours.
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