Mumbai, April 10 (UNI) A sessions court on Friday rejected the bail application of Hitesh Mehta, former general manager and head of accounts of New India Cooperative Bank, in the Rs 122 crore fraud case.
Mehta was arrested in February last year by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police after the bank’s chief executive officer, Devarshi Shishir Kumar Ghosh, filed a complaint against him.
In his bail plea, Mehta denied the charges levelled against him, saying he was in prolonged custody and deserved bail.
While rejecting the plea, judge Vikram R. Jagdale said in his order that 'incarceration for long duration cannot be the ground to grant bail because one cannot lose sight of the fact that in cases of economic offences, it takes time to commence and conclude the trial, especially when there are many accused and witnesses.”
The court also said the applicant is the prime accused in the offence.
According to the prosecution case, Mehta, 57, allegedly withdrew cash from the bank’s Prabhadevi and Goregaon branches, siphoning funds since the Covid-19 pandemic. He reportedly confessed to the crime during police questioning.
The fraud came to light last year when a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) audit team visited the bank and detected loopholes in the accounting process.
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