Srinagar: In a major embarrassment for the JK Bank , a massive fraud has come to light where in crores of rupees have been debited from accounts ‘illegally’. The disclosure will once again out into spot light the governance and compliance standards being practised at the state owned back and the lack of action taken against erring officers.
Sources say that few officers of the Bank over the last few years have been practicing a ‘small ponzi’ scheme wherein money from one account was laundered to other accounts for various purposes and the circle kept on moving.
The client wrote to the JK Bank Chairman Mushtaq Ahmad in January 2015 demanding immediate remittance of Rs. 2,88,80,000.00 ( Two crores eighty eight lacs and eighty thousand) that has allegedly been taken out from his account ‘illegally’ along with interest.
The letter dated 3rd January, 2015, a copy of which is with the Kashmir Monitor raises serious question marks over the conduct of few top officers under whose watch the ‘scam’ has taken place.The client is now demanding a full balance payment with an 18% interest and has already threatened legal action.
Interestingly it is the same branch of JK Bank wherein a fake letter of credit (LC) scam worth over rupees 70 crores had surfaced .
Sources have not ruled out the possibility of the fake LC scam being linked to these unauthorized and illegal
Sources further say that the Chairman has taken a very strong note of the allegations and in a review meeting has said that no one will be spared even if the fraud has the involvement of retired or about to retire officers.
Sources in the Bank say that an FIR has already been registered in the massive case of fraud but they have also not ruled out the complicity of a few clients of the said branch. Other sources maintain that the ‘illegal debit’ entries had been made with full knowledge of few officers as the money was used to ‘cover up’ for the other bad accounts that had payments pending. “ It is quite possible that the money was used to deposit cash in other accounts which were about to go bad. Almost half of the debits made have been done on the last day of the quarter ending December 31 2013.That is suspicious”, says a Bank inside.
“This has reference to my earlier communication sent to you dated 24th November 2014 and my conversation held with Mr. Banday, Executive Director of your Bank on 30.10.2014 and communication dt. 31.10.2014 addressed to your good self on the aforesaid context. The matter has also been notified to your Zonal Office, Gurgaon.
In this context, it is submitted that we had requested Mr. V.K. Khajanchi, Branch Head, J&K Bank Ltd., Rajendra Place, New Delhi on 30.12.2013 to issue 10 FDRs of equal amounts of Rs. 1,00,000/- each in favour of M/s Hindustan Diagnostics Ltd. out of the remaining balance left in the account. Mr. V. K. Khajanchi asked for 10 cheques for issuance of FDRs and I handed over 10 signed blank cheques to Mr. V. K. Khajanchi for doing the needful”, the letter reads.
“Instead of issuance of FDRs, Mr. V.K. Khajanchi unauthorizedly made the following debit entries to my account on 31.12.2013 & 20.01.2014 aggregating Rs. 4,30,30,000.00 in connivance with some accountholders of the said branch by misutilizing the aforesaid 10 cheques available with him”, the letter adds.
What is shocking is the fact that after giving repeated assurances to the client the JK Bank continued to take out money from the account , allegedly without the clients knowledge.
“Being afraid of the situation, Mr. V. K. Khajanchi credited my SOD account with Rs. 2.85 Crores on 30.10.2014 at around 5:20 PM. However, to my utter surprise, he reversed the credit entry of Rs. 2.85 Crores from my account on the same day, i.e. 30.10.2014 at around 8:05 PM. The message might have reached the ears of your ED (Mr. Banday) from some member of staff on the same evening and he had taken stock of the complete episode from me over Cell Phone on 30.10.2014 at around 9:53 PM.But, despite the matter being in the knowledge of a senior executive, the issue is yet to be resolved. If the amount credited to my account is netted from the unauthorized debits, I am yet to receive the difference amount of Rs. 2,88,80,000.00 apart from the interest on the amounts parted from my account”, the letter further alleges.
courtesy: Kashmir Moniter