RBI LEARNS LESSONS FROM MOTIHARI SBI FRAUD; SOON TO ISSUE FRESH DIRECTIVES TO BANKS

SAGAR SURAJ
MOTIHARI: Reserve Bank of India(RBI) is likely to issue fresh directives and advisories to the all chest banks in India to check the fraud in days to come after its audits detected embezzlement in crores from a branch SBI in Motihari in Bihar recently.
An official of RBI said that SBI fraud in Motihari had been committed with the nexus of top officials of the same banks and once bank completes its investigations, RBI would initiates its own investigations to locate the exact technical glitches paving ways of such frauds and involvements of the banks staffs, he said requesting anonymity saying he is not authorized person to comment on the controversy .
Regional manager Amit Ranjan and chief manager of the main branch of Motihari state bank of India Rakesh Kumar replaced suspended regional manager SP Jha and Chief manager Rajnish Kumar . Both the officers has taken charge on the disputed chairs in the limelight for the defalcation of over Rs 13 crore.
Bank’s investigating officers are trying to identify more hands involved in this multi-crore scam committed in stealing damaged notes from the chest branch of SBI. The local officers who use to conduct inquiry two times every years but none of the inquiry teams apprised the matter to RBI team which would also inquires the chest at least once in every six months. “we are looking in to all the aspects of the fraud”, a officer said.
On the instructions of RBI, nine erring officers however have been suspended after RBI themselves detected the fraud in 2016-17 when its team found missing crores rupees of the bolt in the branch during its audits.
Assistant general manger (AGM) MK Singh finally appeared before media after suspension order of officers and told that fraud committed with the nexus of some top officials of the bank. In the initial investigation, we have taken action against nine officials including RM, chief manager (CM) ,ex CM, CM compliance and accountant Sudhir Gupta.
Almost all top officers of bank are camping in Motihari and interrogating the all concerned officials of bank. If sources are to believed, more officers will have to face action of investigating team, they said adding that the damaged notes bundles are in lacs that are being matched with the entry registers. Initially matter had flashed that fraud had been committed in the exchange of damaged notes with RBI but later on officials clarified actual story of fraud.