MUMBAI, AUGUST 30: Former Social Welfare Minister Babanrao Gholap was today arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police and charged formally in the Rs 5 crore Awami Bank scam.The arrest came three days after Gholap left many red faces in the Shiv Sena by engineering the ejection of the his nephew Ravikiran Gholap and the party's official candidate for Devlali assembly election.However, Gholap and two others arrested with him today- Rajaram Palkar and Parag Mehta - were later released on a personal bond of Rs one lakh each by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the 37th court AAA Kidwai. The three have been asked to present themselves before the court on September 10, 1999. In the order, the magistrate wondered why the three accused, including Gholap, had not been arrested earlier along with others.In the case which became infamous as the Awami Bank scam, an amount of Rs 5 crore from three development corporations under Gholap's Social Welfare Ministry was siphoned off by theaccused on the instructions of Gholap. The money was kept in fixed deposits with the Awami Bank and was later deposited in fake and fictitious accounts opened by the accused in the name of the bank. Thereafter, the amount was transferred in the name of a builder close to Gholap, Vithal Kapuskar, who had neither applied for a loan nor submitted the required papers. Through Kapuskar, the money was distributed amongst the others as kickbacks. Mehta, a government employee and a broker in connivance with Gholap and his secretary Anil Pagare gave a kickback of Rs 53 lakh to the bank employees.According to the chargesheet filed by the EOW, Gholap, in connivance with the others intended to grab government fund and misappropriated amount of Rs 5 crore. The chargesheet further states that Gholap did not intentionally inform the government about the fraud and also instigated his personal assistant Pagare to prepare fake and fictitious letters to bank officials.Reacting to today's development, Gholap said he had nocomplaints against the police and the judiciary but added that all this was done at the instance of a state minister in the time of elections.However, Chief Minister, Narayan Rane, who released the joint manifesto of Sena-BJP alliance this evening, said he was not aware of Gholap's arrest.
