Many heads may roll in bungling of Rs3 cr from coop bank

The case

Kulbir Singh, manager, Amritsar Central Cooperative Bank, had lodged a complaint with the rural police that investigation was carried out after the bank found several suspicious transactions of large amounts into private accounts from a company’s account. Rakesh Kumar, branch manager, along with Ram Kishore, Sukhdev and Sukhbir Singh were allegedly transferring these amounts into fake private accounts opened by them.

The bank found an embezzlement of Rs 2.82 crore in an initial probe, though Rs 68 lakh was recovered from the bank accounts where the money was transferred. The police had registered a case under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 4

Senior officials of Central Cooperative Bank and the audit department colluded to bungle a huge amount of the bank. This came to light during the 3-month-long investigation in misappropriation of around Rs 3 crore from the Tarsikka branch of the bank registered with the police on February 19 this year. The police submitted a challan in the local court in mid May.

Many heads are likely to roll in the alleged Rs 3 crore scam in which the amount was bungled by four employees of Central Cooperative Bank in February this year. Two of them, including the branch manager of Tarikka branch, was held by the police after registering an FIR in the case.

Besides the branch manager, identified as Rakesh Kumar, the police had nabbed Ram Kishore of Ludhiana. Two of their accomplices Sukhdev Singh of Sarai village and Sukhbir Singh of Bhatti ke village (both secretaries of the cooperative societies) were also booked in the case.

The police produced a challan in the local court in the middle of May while the police said a supplementary challan would be submitted after the completion of the probe. The police found the role of many senior bank officials suspicious in the case and it needed a detailed investigation.

The police challan submitted in the court stated that besides the persons booked in the case, the role of the senior manager, the district manager, bank officials, deputy registrars, assistant registrars, inspectors of cooperative societies and officials of the audit department have also come under the scanner as a huge amount of the bank and peoples’ accounts were bungled.

If sources in the police department are to be believed, leaders of the ruling party, including a minister, were mounting pressure to hush up the case.

However, the police denied the same. “I have been supervising investigation and I assure all that it is being carried out in a very fair and transparent manner. No investigating officer has been changed in the case so far,” said SSP, Amritsar rural, Vikram Jeet Duggal. “We are not being pressurized and all the cooperative societies are cooperating with the police department in the probe,” he added.

A police official preferring anonymity said the amount bungled would be much higher than they anticipated.