Two Union Bank officials booked in note scam

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday registered a case against a deputy general manager and an assistant general manager of the Union Bank of India along with three directors of private firms for allegedly violating Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines pertaining to demonetised currency. Investigations revealed that the accused bank officials connived with the owners of the private firms and allowed depositing demonetised currency notes worth around Rs 82.50 crore in the currency chest of the bank, officials said.

The accused were identified as Ashok Kumar Dhabhai, deputy general manager, regional office, Union Bank of India, K. Shivashankar Rao, assistant general manager and branch manager, Union Bank of India, Zaveri Bazar Branch, Rakesh Patel, proprietor of M/s Pihu Gold, Mumbai, Mayur Chawla, proprietor of M/s Satnam Jewellers, Mumbai, Amit Sampat, director of M/s Pushpak Bullion Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai that owns Jewel World, located at Kalbadevi Road in Zaveri Bazar, along with other unknown persons.

The CBI officials said that the accused had fudged the records between November 15, 2016 and December 26, 2016 and showed amounts of around Rs 47.45 crore and Rs 37.15 crore to have been fraudulently deposited in the accounts of two private firms based at Mumbai. The said bank accounts were in the Zaveri Bazar branch of the Union Bank of India and officials said the balances were shown by fabricating the record.

“The same amounts were further shown as transferred to another Kalbadevi-based private firm, Jewel World. However, the account of that firm was a Non Performing Account (NPA). The account was also in the same branch,” said a CBI officer.

The officials further learnt that the cash of Rs 47.45 crore and Rs 37.15 crore were directly deposited into the currency chest of Union Bank of India in the form of old demonetised currency notes by showing it as outright purchase (cash purchase) of gold from Standard Chartered Bank and other authorised bank, by Jewel orld.

“The cash was deposited in the currency chest of bank by representative of the said firms in an alleged conspiracy with Dhabhai and Rao of the bank. This was in gross violation of the RBI’s guidelines issued on November 8, 2016,” added the CBI officer. The CBI officials also conducted searches and raids at 12 places including residential and office premises of all the accused persons and recovered the incriminating documents.