Four persons, including two bank employees, were booked for an alleged fraud of about Rs 12 lakh in Axis Bank, police said on Friday.
Ajay Kumar Dwivedi, the branch head of Axis Bank Ltd, Sector 10 A, Gurugram, filed a complaint with the police alleging fraud by two bank officials Dinesh Bansal and Mahesh Singh and one Rohit as well as four unidentified persons, they said.
“Two accounts, one saving and one current, were maintained by account holder RIT and Rohit Kumar (who was the same person). These accounts were having credit balances but not operated by the customers for long and the branch decided to close these accounts as these customers were not contactable,” police said quoting the complaint.
“Post closure of accounts, two demand drafts (DDs) -- one of Rs 4,14,040 and second of Rs 7,68,818.08 -- were issued from the two accounts respectively.
“These DDs were not delivered to the intending payees, instead revalidated and encashed through newly opened accounts of one Rohit (third person not linked to RIT and Rohit Kumar),” they said.
“Internal inquiry revealed that the two DDs were revalidated by the branch and the signatures of customers were forged. The DDs were lodged in the newly opened account and encashed through cheques bearing suspected forged signatures,” police said.
“Such act of encashment of DDs through third party account of Rohit cannot be undertaken without proper planning and assistance of an insider,” as per the complaint filed with the police.
It alleged that Dinesh Bansal, who was the then branch head of Axis bank at Sector 10 A, Gurugram, processed the DDs.
“Further, Rohit (third party) claimed that he had opened these accounts based on trust on Dinesh Bansal and Mahesh Singh (sourcing official of these accounts). It was also found that in one such cash payment of Rs 1.91 lakh, a related cheque was given by Dinesh Bansal through Arabinda Patra (housekeeping/pantry boy) who collected cash from the teller and handed it over to Dinesh Bansal,” police said.
“A preliminary exercise at our end to find out the reasons for occurrence of the fraud has indicated that Dinesh Bansal and Mahesh Singh of the bank are prima facie involved in the fraud along with customer Rohit,” they said quoting the complaint.
The Bank demanded a detailed investigation into the matter. Following the complaint, an FIR has been registered against a former branch manager of Axis Bank and others under IPC sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) at Sector 10 police station, police said.
“We have sought records from the bank. After verifying the facts, action will be taken as per the law,” said ASI Arun Kumar, the investigating officer in the case.
-With PTI Input
