MMCB plans to auction defaulters' assets

Properties owned by Ketan Parekh given the miss

The defunct Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank (MMCB) is planning to auction properties of defaulters to recover dues.

The administrator of the bank has finalised the list of 11 defaulters with properties in and around Ahmedabad district.

Properties of some of the biggest defaulters, Kirit K Shah group and Jayesh Bhimani group, will also be auctioned. However, properties owned by Ketan Parekh have not been listed in the tally made public by the defunct bank.

According to a senior official of MMCB, action against Parekh is not easy as his properties also falls under the Maharashtra state jurisdiction. The official also stated that properties of Parekh mortgaged with the bank has also legal tangles attached to it.

"We are going to held one more auction of the properties attached by the bank administration under the revival scheme. The intention behind the scheme is to help nearly three lakh depositors to get their deposits back as well as 268 small and big co-operative banks who have lost about Rs 1,050 crore. The bank will help the purchasers to get the titles clear. The bank management will also take the responsibility of transferring ownership," said Jayram Patel, chairman, MMCB.

Properties of Rs 3.17 crore, which was attached under the Securitisation Act, will also be auctioned apart from properties worth about Rs 12 crore with permission of defaulters. It is the sixth attempt by MMCB in a raw to reduce the burden of long pending dues. The recovery generated from the earlier auctions is, however, not known.

Some of the big defaulters whose properties will be auctioned are Kirit K Shah, who owes Rs 76,70,47,058, Jayesh Bhimani with bad debts of Rs 58,54,01,128, Gujarat Metal Industries, which owes Rs 3,88,19,986 and Krishna Dyestuff Industries, which owes Rs 2,11,13,343.

The bank said the management has already distributed first instalment od DGCI funds to individual depositors recently.

"With recovery process on in full swing more rounds of auction are expected in next couple of months. We are also trying to get rid of certain properties that have not been sold during the earlier attempts," said the official.