After land scam, Sheetal Tejwani arrested in multi-crore Seva Vikas Bank Fraud case

The Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested Sheetal Tejwani in the multi crore Seva Vikas Cooperative Bank loan fraud case.

The CID took Tejwani into custody on January 3 from the Yerwada jail, where she was lodged under judicial custody in connection with the Mundhwa land scam involving a firm in which Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s son, Parth, is a partner.

The CID team, led by police inspector S N Lahane, then produced Tejwani before a special court in Pune.

As per submissions made by CID before the court, Tejwani allegedly defaulted Seva Vikas Bank loans of about Rs 20.49 crores. The agency told the court that Tejwani took a loan of Rs 2 crores from the Seva Vikas Bank’s Budhwar Peth branch for buying a new Land Rover SUV, but instead she purchased a used Lamborghini.

The CID also alleged that Tejwani took a business loan of Rs 3 crores in the name of her company Paramount Infrastructure from the Pimpri branch branch of the bank. However, instead of using the money to scale her business, she allegedly transferred it into the bank account of Rosary Global School run by accused Vinay Arhana, who was arrested by the CID in the Seva Vikas Bank fraud case, in March 2024.

According to the CID, Tejwani took one more loan of Rs 2.25 from the Pimpri main branch of Seva Vikas Bank in 2014 in the name of a firm “Renuka lawns”, run by her and co-accused Sagar Suryawanshi, who too was arrested in the bank fraud case in March 2024.

The CID told the court that loan amount was transferred into Arhana’s account in Seva Vikas Bank. The CID also submitted that “Renuka Lawns” was not registered with the Assistant Registrar of Firms in Pune.

The CID informed the court that although the total loan Tejwani took from Seva Vikas Bank is Rs 7.25 crores, the default amount—after accruing of interest—has now reached Rs 20.49 crore. The court sent Tejwani to CID’s custody till Tuesday for further investigation into the alleged bank fraud.

Dhanraj Aswani (58) had lodged an FIR at the Pimpri police station in 2019, against the chairperson, directors and other officials of the Seva Vikas Bank, which is headquartered in Pimpri and has 25 branches with around one lakh depositors, alleging that the bank was fraudulently sanctioning loans.

In June 2021, the Reserve Bank of India appointed an administrator, following multiple cases that were filed by depositors over 2019 and 2020 and subsequent arrests of four of its office bearers.

The Maharashtra government had also appointed an auditor to probe into the alleged irregularities in disbursing loans to some particular entities.

The auditor submitted its report in 2020, following which the Pimpri Chinchwad police established a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter. The SIT probe revealed serious irregularities in 124 loans totalling around Rs 429 crores. Multiple FIRs related to the fraud came to be registered.

In November 2021, the Bombay High Court (HC) passed an order to quash the FIR filed by Aswani. The Supreme Court set aside the HC order in 2023 and ordered further investigation.

The CID then arrested Sagar Suryawanshi, Arhana and Manish Zende, who had taken loans from the Seva Vikas Bank. Now, the CID has taken Tejwani’s custody to probe her role in the scam.

Meanwhile, based on the SIT probe, the ED had launched an investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and seized movable and immovable properties worth Rs 122.35 crore linked to various accused.

Meanwhile, Arhana was also arrested by the Pune city police for allegedly helping drug racketeer Lalit Patil escape police custody from the Sassoon General Hospital in 2023.