Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Sept 15: Taking suo moto cognizance of the alleged fraud in exchange of demonetized currency by Citizens Cooperative Bank Ltd Jammu, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today initiated preliminary enquiry into the scam, which has already been established by an internal probe panel.
Official sources told the Excelsior that a two-member team of CBI officers today visited the CCBL headquarters and collected details of the matter from the bank officers, who had probed the fraud after detailed investigation.
The CBI officers sought some clarifications and details about the modus operandi adopted by the accused bank officers, who had illegally exchanged around Rs 2 crores new currency notes with the demonetized ones, sources added.
While elaborating, sources said that the CBI team reached the CCBL headquarters this afternoon and sought meeting with the Administrative officers who had conducted enquiry into the scam. In their separate meetings with the CCBL officers, namely Rajiv Dogra, Kuljeet Rai and Rajesh Tandon, sources said that the CBI team sought some technical details of the matter and the procedure adopted to find out mismatch in the currency swapped with the demonetized notes.
The CBI team remained there for more than two hours and collected required information for the preliminary enquiry, which shall be converted into regular inquiry after ascertaining requisite details of the scam, sources said.
It may be recalled that in the first of its kind cash exchange scam in Jammu and Kashmir, a major fraud was detected in the CCBL Jammu where new currency notes worth two crore rupees, approximately, were illegally swapped with demonetized notes of Rs 500/1000 by the bank officials.
Taking a prompt action following detection of the fraud, which took place during initial days of post-demonetization period, Dr Arun Manhas, ADC Jammu and then Government appointed Administrator of CCBL, had ordered an inquiry, which culminated with the suspension of General Manager and Manager Central Office besides attachment of all the Incharge Managers of CCBL Branches and Extension Counters.
In its detailed report, the enquiry commission established deviation of around Rs 2 crores in the CCBL branches and Extension Counters. The mismatch was ascertained on verification of vouchers, detail book scroll, cash scroll and application forms against which the demonetized currency notes were exchanged in the bank while serious lapses on the part of accused officers were observed on the basis of the replies of the staff to enquiry commission. In some cases of deviation, there was excess demonetized currency and less legal tenders while in other cases, the demonetized notes were found less than the exchanged Legal Tenders.
Besides this, the enquiry commission had also found that the voluminous records regarding exchange of demonetized currency did contain serious infirmities such as alteration in details, cutting in application forms and application forms without signature, etc.
According to the sources, the CBI has taken suo-moto initiative for probe into the scam after going through detailed report of the banks’ internal enquiry committee, which was submitted to the Reserve Bank of India and other regulating agencies.
In response to the RBI query seeking to know about identity of alleged beneficiaries of the scam, whose demonetized currency was illegally swapped with new notes, the CCBL has also constituted a separate enquiry committee, sources said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel