MAPUSA
Concerned depositors of the Mapusa Urban Cooperative Bank (MUCB) said that the recent claims of the bank liquidator and the management that 90 percent of the eligible claim amount has been settled was false and an attempt to misguide the suffering depositors.
They also said that the bank’s warning to publish names of all defaulters in the media was a hollow threat as the Supreme Court has directed all banks to make the list of defaulters public.
The depositors informed that the Director of Deposit Insurance & Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC), Mumbai in its latest report released on March 2 stated that the total depositor claims released was 30,621 amounting to Rs 241.76 crore which constitutes a mere 46.86 percent of all depositor claims of Rs 5 lakh and below category.
“The MUCB and the liquidator’s submissions that 98.20 percent depositor claims have been paid is false and a figment of imagination blatantly misrepresenting facts to only misguide and mislead the suffering depositors,” said Joseph Carneiro, a depositor, in a signed statement.
He said the DICGC report also makes it abundantly clear that the amount paid to large depositors (above Rs 5 lakh) stands at miserable zero till date.
He further said that these Rs 5 lakh and above depositor claims are to be explicitly made from the recoveries of sale of defaulters/debtors collaterals, auctions and sale of MUCB assets.
The concerned depositors said that the former and present liquidators of MUCB have been competing with each other in arbitrarily granting unlimited One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme to willful defaulters/debtors in violation and contrary to the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court.
“The contention of the liquidator that the real estate rates have crashed in Goa and therefore no efforts were made to recover and settle the above Rs 5 lakh claims is concocted, imaginary and deceptive excuses,” said Prabhakar Salgoankar, another depositor.
The depositors also thrashed the bank’s recent warning to make names of defaulting loanees public as there was already a Supreme Court order in that direction.
“A 2019 order of SC has asked banks to make the list of defaulters public with a warning that any non-compliance of its order would be taken up seriously and RBI would have to face contempt proceedings,” the depositors said.
They, however, welcomed the decision of the bank for giving the defaulters 15 more days to pay their loans with the OTS facility and for issuing the sale notices of 48 shops in Essar Trade centre, Mapusa
