In July 2024, months before Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) floated its public tender for office space, one of the men who would eventually sign the lease on behalf of the lessor entities sent a written message to his co-signatories — and to Vinod Gannu, an American investor with ownership stakes in the same properties. The message was unambiguous: the properties were 'disputed' and should 'not be proposed to anybody for leasing or selling'. The co-signatory's reply was a single word: 'Noted, Sir'. Six months later, Bank of Maharashtra executed a 15-year lease on those very properties, committing ₹1,161 crore of public money. The Bank has not explained how its due diligence missed this warning. It has not explained why the lease proceeded. It has not, in fact, explained anything — responding to none of the detailed questions put to it by Moneylife. This is the story of what those questions were and why they matter.
The Space Crisis — And the Fourth Attempt
Bank of Maharashtra's space problem was real and well-documented. The Bank's head office at Lokmangal in Shivaji Nagar, Pune, is 48 years old and structurally incapable of additional vertical construction. Head office staff strength doubled from around 550 to 1,050 in just two years, driven largely by the expansion of information technology (IT) and transaction monitoring verticals. A new cyber security operation centre (CSOC), running 24x7 to combat the rising menace of digital fraud, needed a permanent home. The Bank's 50-year-old training centre had been declared unfit and vacated in August 2022, forcing all training to be conducted at outsourced facilities at additional cost. Pune municipal corporation (PMC) had served notice demanding the surrender of part of the Lokmangal premises for a Metro road-widening project.
Three attempts to solve the problem had failed. A request for proposal (RFP) issued in December 2022 yielded no results. A second attempt in June 2023 also came up empty. A third attempt in December 2023 succeeded in leasing space at Erandwane, Pune — but the lessor promptly served an eviction notice demanding ₹3.25 crore in penalty and vacation within five months. The Erandwane facility housed the CSOC. Eviction would have crippled the Bank's cybersecurity operations.
In July 2024, BoM board was presented with three options: construct on land, take a long lease, or purchase ready-built property. It approved the long-lease route — about 100,000sqft (square feet), minimum five-year, extendable to 15 years or more. A public tender was advertised in Times of India, Financial Express and Loksatta on 24 October 2024 and 7 November 2024. Bids closed in November 2024. The L1 (lowest) bidder was selected. The registered lease deed was executed on 10 January 2025. Possession was taken in October 2025. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated the facility. The Bank called it a triumph of decisive action.
What the Bank did not say — and has since declined to explain — is what was happening on the other side of that lease deed.
Devidas Tuljapurkar, former director of BoM and chairman of All India Bank of Maharashtra Employees Federation (AIBMEF), has raised concerns over the decision to shift the Bank’s head office from its owned Lokmangal building to a leased premises in Baner, questioning the lack of transparency and stakeholder consultation in a move involving significant financial implications.
He also flagged issues around corporate governance and public accountability, stating that the absence of disclosures on lease terms and future plans for the Lokmangal building raises serious concerns and called for intervention by the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ensure full transparency and safeguard stakeholder interests.
Pune-based right to information (RTI) activist Vijay Kumbhar termed the Bank of Maharashtra’s decision to lease office space, despite owning property, as a 'classic case of financial misjudgement', alleging that it places an unnecessary burden of ₹1,161 crore on the Bank for private gain while the asset must still be returned after 15 years. "The issue goes beyond one bank and concerns the safeguarding of public funds."
He also flagged serious irregularities in the tender and due diligence process, including flawed eligibility criteria, fragmented ownership of the leased property and discrepancies in carpet area and parking space. Mr Kumbhar warned that ignoring such risks could lead to legal disputes, financial losses and reputational damage and called for a forensic probe, a public audit of the tender and accountability for officials.
RTI activist and BoM’s shareholder Vivek Velankar also raises similar questions. “Bank of Maharashtra has their own huge plot at Lokmangal, on which they can build a huge building bigger than the current rented place for less than ₹60 crore. They are going to spend more than ₹1000 crore only on rent in the next 15 years. Renting out a place for the head office is an absolutely illogical, expensive and fraudulent decision by the board of directors of BoM. This needs to be scrutinised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) and the Union ministry of finance on a top-priority basis,” Mr Velankar, who is also president of Pune-based Sajag Nagrik Manch says.
The American Investors and the Montclaire Project
Mr Gannu is an Indian-origin investor based in Stamford, Connecticut, US. Starting in 2021, he and a group of American co-investors began investing in the Montclaire commercial real estate project on Baner-Pashan Link Road, Pune. The funds were remitted from US banks to India through Genesis Green LLC, a US-registered company of which Mr Gannu is the representative. The investments complied with Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations — a FEMA certificate for Genesis Green is part of the documentary record.
The investment was structured through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Konbil Landmark — the entity representing the American investors' collective interest — and NKAPL, the original developer of Montclaire. The MoU was specific: an annexure listed which office units were to be registered under Konbil Landmark as part of the agreement. As construction progressed and the project's unit ownership was distributed across multiple entities like Gallop Life Spaces LLP, Gallop Montclaire Developers LLP, Ashreyakiran IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, AK Enterprises, Montclaire Landmarks LLP, Windson Project LLP, and others, the American investors were repeatedly assured that their equity ownership would be mirrored across each of these entities in proportion to the Konbil Landmark MoU's 50% ownership structure.
The emails and communications from the syndicate, says Namrata Gannu, the daughter of Mr Gannu, consistently had the Konbil Landmark email address copied, thus creating the appearance that the original MoU would be honoured throughout. On paper, Mr Gannu became an 18.33% designated partner in Gallop Montclaire Developers LLP. A 30.31% partnership stake in Gallop Life Spaces LLP, which owned floor 3A units, was promised and the original property documents for the floor 3A units were physically handed over to Mr Gannu's son Siddesh as incoming partner, a transfer confirmed in a message from the group's chartered accountant (CA) on a shared group chat. Of the 31 office units eventually leased to Bank of Maharashtra, 22 were supposed to come to Konbil Landmark under the original MoU.
The RERA completion deadline for the Montclaire project was December 2024.
How They Found Out — 11 Months Too Late
Mr Gannu and his family did not learn that Bank of Maharashtra had leased office space built on their investment until October-November 2025 — nearly 11 months after the lease deed was registered.
The family says the silence was deliberate. Despite being an 18.33% designated partner in Gallop Montclaire Developers LLP, one of the eight entities that collectively signed the lease with the Bank, Mr Gannu says he received no communication, no notice of any partners' meeting to discuss the lease and no request for his authorisation or signature before the deed was executed on 10 January 2025.
It was Bank of Maharashtra's own employee union that first alerted the family. The union was making inquiries about the identity of 'foreign investor Vinod Gannu', whose name had surfaced in connection with the leased properties. Around the same time, the family obtained a copy of the lease deed and reviewed it carefully. What they found alarmed them deeply.
By November 2025, Mr Gannu had begun filing detailed, document-backed complaints — to the Bank's managing director and chief executive officer (MD&CEO), its chief vigilance officer (CVO), all directors on the board, the central vigilance commission (CC), RBI, the finance ministry, the department of financial services (DFS), and central bureau of investigation (CBI).
Bank of Maharashtra's first substantive response came in February 2026 — a letter that Mr Gannu describes as "a nice attempt at writing an essay in flowery language without answering the basic discrepancies and violations" he had raised. None of his eight specific questions was answered.
Eight Allegations the Bank Has Not Answered
1. A Lease Built on Mortgaged Property — No Lender NOC
The Montclaire building was constructed by developer NKAPL using borrowed funds from the Piramal group. As of June 2025, a pending debt of over ₹181 crore remained outstanding — a figure that has since grown beyond ₹200 crore. The secured lender, Piramal, Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise Ltd (ACRE) and an asset reconstruction company (ARC), subsequently froze the escrow accounts and took possession of the building's common areas.
A possession notice published in a newspaper in November 2025 — 10 months after Bank of Maharashtra had already signed its lease and moved in — recorded the lender taking possession of the transformer space: the electrical heart of the entire Montclaire building. No electricity supply in a building housing 700 bank employees, a data centre, and a 24x7 CSOC is not a minor operational inconvenience. It is a potential catastrophe.
No NOC (no objection certificate) was obtained from the secured lender before Bank of Maharashtra executed its 15-year lease. Under Section 108 of the Transfer of Property Act 1882, a lessor cannot transfer rights it does not possess. Under the SARFAESI Act Sections 13 and 14, a secured creditor's rights are superior to those of any subsequent lessee. The Bank's leasehold interest is, therefore, legally subordinate to, and potentially voidable by, the lender's prior and superior security interest. The Bank committed ₹1,161 crore of public money to a property that its own lessor entities did not have the unencumbered right to lease.
Bank of Maharashtra's response: none.
2. A Property Flagged as 'Disputed' — In Writing — before the Tender Was Even Floated
The July 2024 communication sits at the centre of this story. Rajesh Laxmikant Mamidwar — one of the signatories to the eventual Bank of Maharashtra lease — sent a written message to Kiran Manohar Chamle (another eventual signatory) and to Mr Gannu, explicitly warning that the properties were 'disputed properties and not to propose to anybody for leasing or selling' and that 'unnecessarily you will face embarrassment'. Mr Chamle's reply was a single word: "Noted, Sir."
This written acknowledgement of disputed status predates the Bank's public tender notice of October 2024 by three months, the closing of bids in November 2024 by four months and the execution of the lease in January 2025 by six months. The Bank's mandatory due diligence — which it says included title verification by three independent legal opinions and an audit by a law firm -- should have surfaced this dispute. A title and search report not older than six months was a mandatory submission condition in the tender document. Such a report conducted before the lease was signed would have revealed Mr Gannu's name and his family's claimed ownership interest. Either it did not, which raises serious questions about the quality of due diligence conducted, or it did, and the lease proceeded regardless.
Bank of Maharashtra's response: none.
3. The Board Approved the Specific Location before the Tender Was Floated
A letter sent by Bank of Maharashtra's company secretary Vishal Sethia to right to information (RTI) activist Mr Velankar states that the board decided on 27 August 2024 to lease the Baner premises — the Montclaire building. The Bank's public tender was advertised in October 2024. Bids closed in November 2024. The L1 bidder was declared the winner thereafter.
If the board specifically approved the Montclaire location on 27 August 2024 — a full two months before the tender was even published — the entire public tendering exercise that followed raises a fundamental question: was it a genuine competitive process, or a procedural formality designed to provide the appearance of compliance with general financial rules while the outcome was already determined?
The Bank's clarification letter sent to some members of Parliament (MP) characterises the board approval as being for the 'type of solution' — long lease of about 100,000sq ft — not the specific location. This distinction matters enormously. The Bank has not answered the question directly.
It is worth noting additionally that Mr Gannu, as a designated partner in Gallop Montclaire Developers, one of the entities that bid for and won the tender, repeatedly requested the bidding documents from the Bank after discovering the lease. These requests were ignored.
4. The Tender's Mandatory Conditions Were Allegedly Violated — Repeatedly and in Favour of the Winning Bidder
The Bank's RFP document contained multiple mandatory pre-conditions for eligible bidders. According to the Gannu family's detailed analysis, virtually every significant condition was violated; yet the bid was accepted, the financial bid was opened and the lease was executed. Other bidders who could not meet these conditions — if there were any — would have disqualified themselves on the same grounds that the successful bidder apparently did not.
- On the Power of Attorney
The tender document explicitly stated it invited bids from 'eligible builders/owners having valid power of attorney (POA). The lease involves eight separate lessor entities owning 31 individual units. Mr Gannu, as 18.33% designated partner in Gallop Montclaire Developers, says he gave no POA to anyone. Without valid POAs from all partners of all eight entities, the technical bid should never have proceeded to the financial bid stage. Yet it did.
- On Freehold Property
The tender mandated freehold properties only. Two of the units leased to the Bank — B601 and A702 — were sub-leased properties. Their bhadepatti (sub-lease deed) was executed on 1 January 2025, just nine days before the Bank's lease deed was registered and well after the bid submission deadline of November 2024. These units were not part of the original bid at all — they were inserted into the deal after bids had closed and after the winning bidder had been selected. This is not a minor procedural irregularity. It is the addition of new, non-freehold properties to a tender that had already concluded, in violation of a mandatory condition that any other bidder would have known was non-negotiable.
- On Parking
The tender mandated a minimum of 200 car parking spaces and 1,000 two-wheeler parking spaces, with the bid to be rejected if this condition was not met. Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) records show the developer had declared only 300 total parking spaces for the entire Montclaire building. AK Enterprises, one of the lessor entities, claims parking spaces in the lease that do not appear in any RERA registration. It also promised hundreds of additional parking spaces 'in the future', a promise made after the building's occupancy certificate (OC) had already been issued and the housing society had already been formed, making it legally impossible to create new parking spaces within the building. No stamp duty appears to have been paid on these future parking promises. The Bank is simultaneously paying AK Enterprises over ₹10 crore in parking charges for spaces that, according to Index 2 documents, the entity does not own.
- On Adjoining Floors
The tender required consecutive, adjoining floors. The 31 leased units are spread across six staggered floors. The Bank's clarification letter attempts to redefine 'consecutive' as meaning 'consecutive horizontal floor plate' — an interpretation that stretches the plain meaning of the word to accommodate the winning bidder's offering.
- On Plug-and-play Readiness
The tender required fully furnished, air-conditioned premises with full power back-up, handed over in plug-and-play condition. According to sources, even several months after the lease was executed and rent was being paid, this fundamental qualifying condition had not been met.
- On Foreign Investment Disclosure
The tender mandated the declaration of any foreign investments in the bidder entities. This was not done — despite the American investors' documented equity interest in the lessor entities, confirmed by FEMA certificate, partnership deeds and email correspondence.
(This is the first part of a two-part series)
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NOTE: Moneylife sent a detailed questionnaire to Bank of Maharashtra seeking responses to all allegations described in this article. No response has been received as of the time of publication. The allegations of Vinod Gannu and Namrata Gannu are based on their written communications to Moneylife and supporting documents provided by them. The Bank of Maharashtra's position, as stated in its March 2026 clarification letter, has been reported in full and in context throughout this article. The lessor entities named in this article were not separately approached for comment at this stage; Moneylife will update this story if responses are received from any party. The allegations in this article are as yet unproven in a court of law. Bank of Maharashtra, its officials, and the lessor entities are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
