In the wake of a damning review by ABP News, the flagship credit co-op in the country Adarsh Credit Co-operative has served a Legal Notice to the television channel, informs Atij Naik who is with the Legal Cell of Adarsh Credit Co-op based in Ahmadabad.
“Our Chairman (Mukesh Modi) has instructed the branches to satisfy each and every customer and thus we have been busy for last 3-4 days satisfying the members by giving them either “repayment” or “pre-payment” as the case may be”, Naik added explaining why there was delay in Adarsh Credit Co-op responding to Indian Cooperative phone calls.
“But the situation has stabilized now with both deposits and reimbursements happening at our branches. The footfalls in any of Adarsh Credit branch that you may choose to visit are back to normal, Naik said while admitting that there was a huge pressure of payment in the wake of ABP news which spread negativity about the credit co-op all around.
It bears recall that Adarsh Credit received a negative review from ABP News Television channel in its special program titled Master Stroke, anchored by Punya Prasun Bajpai. The television report alleged that Adarsh Credit Co-op runs Ponzi schemes promising doubling the deposits in 6 years and has collected Rs 8400 from 20 lakh gullible investors in the process.
ABP News also accused the credit co-op of diverting the money to various shell companies being run by the family members and friends of chief promoter Mukesh Modi and said its Balance Sheet shows that while Adarsh Credit Co-op has just Rs 131.63 crore as deposits in Bank, it owes more than Rs 9639 crore of investors’ money with it.
A massive raid across several of the branches of Adarsh Credit by Income Tax sleuths also began in the wake of the media report. Admitting this Naik said “We are cooperating with the IT people and have given them all the documents that they demanded”. There were raids conducted at more than 20 places including Jaipur, Sirohi, Ajmer and others.
“There were IT raids also in 2010 in which also we had cooperated and nothing amiss was found”, said Naik confident that this time also Adarsh would come out squeaky clean.
Sources said that the entire report of ABP News is based on the “facts and figures” supplied by a few disgruntled former employees of the credit co-operative who have recently been asked to resign. These are all bullshit and the cooperative has been conducting its business operations honestly, they assert.
Whatever be the truth, but Adarsh Credit still has to answer many questions. It needs to explain if it is indeed running so many companies in the name of one family members? If so it is condemnable as this trend visible in several of the cooperatives has been resisted by Sahakar Bharati since the very beginning.
Additionally, if it is a responsible co-operative, Adarsh also needs to explain the funny balance sheet which shows a deposit of Rs 131 crore and a liability of more than Rs 9000 crore. Adarsh has to explain in complete details the projects in which investors’ Rs 8400 crore has been invested. This would clear doubts and instill confidence among members.
The Legal Cell representative has promised to supply all the details to Indian Cooperative in a couple of days after consulting with top bosses. It would indeed be sad for the cooperative movement of the country if a cooperative like Adarsh goes astray. We still hope Adarsh will prove its innocence! Sooner the better!