Indian Bank panel advocate held for bribery in Kolhapur

CBI officials said that a complaint was received from a Kolhapur-based man who had taken a loan of Rs 5.5 crore from Indian Bank to start a commercial laundry project with his mother and cousin.

However, the project failed and the loan account turned into a non-performing asset.

The complainant contacted the bank for a one-time settlement (OTS) and deposited a demand draft of Rs 16.5 lakh.

However, the bank’s panel advocate Patankar, who was looking after the legal formalities on behalf of the bank, contacted and informed the complainant that the bank would take possession of the mortgaged property if the complainant did not pay him the undue advantage of Rs 2.5 lakh.

After negotiation, the panel advocate reduced the bribe demand to Rs 1.8 lakh.

During verification, the bribe demand was confirmed by the CBI ACB team and the panel advocate agreed to receive Rs 1.7 lakh from the complainant as a bribe for deferring the possession of mortgaged property.

Based on the verification, a regular case, equivalent to a first information report for CBI, was registered.

A CBI ACB team laid the trap and Patankar was caught red-handed accepting the bribe from the complainant for deferring the possession of mortgaged property. He was placed under arrest on Tuesday night.

The case is registered under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the accused was remanded to CBI custody on Wednesday.

Officials said that the CBI team conducted searches at the residential and official premises of the accused at Ichalkaranji, which led to recovery of incriminating documents.