Cong MLA Sunil Kedar likely to be ousted from assembly

Former minister and Congress MLA Sunil Kedar, who was arrested on Friday following his conviction in a two-decade-old, ₹150-crore co-operative bank scam, is likely to lose his membership of the assembly. According to a Hindustan Times report, Speaker Rahul Narwekar is expected to disqualify him, as the Nagpur police have informed him about Kedar’s sentence.

On Friday, a special court in Nagpur sentenced Kedar to five years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹12.5 lakh. The senior leader was accused of diverting bank funds to private entities for the purchase of government securities, leading to substantial financial losses for the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB).

Soon after the verdict, the five-term MLA from Savner assembly constituency in Nagpur was arrested by the police. By late night, he began complaining of uneasiness and chest pain. He was admitted to the Nagpur government hospital, and was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after medical tests were conducted.“We have received information about his conviction and arrest from the Nagpur police. The speaker will soon be taking a decision on his disqualification as an MLA,” said a senior official from the speaker’s office.

The case is over two decades old, and Kedar, chairman of the NDCCB when the scam surfaced in 2002, was the prime accused. It was alleged that during his tenure, companies from Mumbai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad purchased government bonds worth Rs125 crore using bank funds, which they failed to repay. The cooperative department auditor, taking into account the bank interest during the period, had pegged the value of the scam at ₹150 crore.