Auditor arrested over BDA mutual fund scam

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has taken another person into custody in connection with the multi-crore mutual fund scam in the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA).

Ravishankar, a private auditor who had signed on the Rs 30-crore cheque, which was diverted for investment in the mutual fund, was produced before the Lokayukta special court on Friday. He was remanded in judicial custody till November 19.

Sources said Ravishankar had also worked for the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation. He was the joint signatory of a cheque for Rs 30 crore, they added.

The CID had arrested the kingpin of the scam, Sandeep Dash, an Indian Civil Accounts Service officer, in August. The investigators had also arrested retired Joint Comptroller (State Accounts Department) and former financial member of the BDA, M N Sheshappa, and suspended BDA cashier C Vasanth Kumar in the case.

The CID investigation had revealed that Dash had invested the BDA money in mutual funds after opening temporary bank accounts in Indian Overseas Bank during 1999 without prior approval from the BDA.

The bank accounts were also not shown in the accounts of the BDA and Dash instructed the banks to transfer the money from the BDA account to the temporary bank account.

Through pay order and banker’s cheque, Dash invested around Rs 2,202.90 crore. During this period, Dash had also transferred Rs 5.54 crore to Coffee Board, where his wife Sharada Subramanyam was a finance director.