‘Cooperative banks risky for civic funds’
It is dangerous to keep money in cooperative banks that have the tendency to go bankrupt. The public should not risk depositing any amount of money in these cooperative banks, said the Bombay high court in a damning statement.
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court was severe in further observing that corrupt officials should be punished with life imprisonment.
Justice A.B. Chaudhary of the Nagpur bench, was hearing the case of corruption against Akola municipal commissioner Giridhar Kurve, who had challenged the corruption charges against him. The judge observed that the law provides for punishment of seven years of imprisonment for a corrupt government servant. This, the court observed is not stringent enough to deter corruption.
Kurve had deposited Rs 1.3 crore belonging to the Akola Municipal Corporation in the Vidarbha Nagari Sahakari Bank that was declared bankrupt within a month of depositing the money.
The court observed that Kurve had no business to deposit public money in a cooperative bank,
especially when there were two branches of Dena Bank, a scheduled bank, in the vicinity of the municipal corporation’s office.
Anand Balode, who had made a complaint against Kurve, made allegations that the municipal commissioner’s decision to deposit money in a cooperative bank was highly suspicious.
The court observed that there were no reasonable grounds for such a huge amount of money to be kept in a cooperative bank.
It was also observed that there seemed to be some nexus between the commissioner and someone wanting to cause a major financial loss to the municipality.
The court further observed that the incidents of corruption by the government officials, high-ranking officials deputed to financial institutions and banks are on the rise and so are the incidents of the financial institutions going bankrupt.
To stop the “cancer” from spreading, the punishment should be made as stringent as possible, observed the HC.
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