Kummanam Rajasekharan, former Mizoram Governor, has expressed concern and apprehension over the functioning of cooperative Banks in Kerala. Taking serious note of the sit-in staged in front of the Karuvannoor Cooperative Bank by customers and relations of a retired government nurse who breathed her last following the refusal of the Bank to return her money, Rajasekharan said this was just the tip of the iceberg and only a probe by a central agency would bring out the real picture.

“We will see more such incidents in days to come as most of the Cooperative Banks in the State have gone bust according to the Kerala minister for Cooperation who told the Legislative Assembly that they were not in a position to give back the investments,” said Rajasekharan in a statement on Wednesday.

The former Governor said that politicisation by the CPI(M) and the Congress have ruined the Cooperative sector in the State. Rajasekharan also questioned the propriety behind the Cooperative Department’s move to borrow Rs one crore each from nearby Cooperative Banks to pay off the investors demanding their money back. “This will have a cascading effect as the Banks from which they are availing loans would need more money to pay off their own investors,” pointed out Rajasekharan.

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday had asked the Karuvannoor Cooperative Bank to put on hold its move to issue tokens to customers whose term deposits have matured. Justice T R Ravi said that the proposed move by the  Bank is unheard of anywhere and there were no criterions on the pattern to be followed in issuing of  token system.