27 bank officials suspended for violating RBI instructions

December 03, 2016 12:17 am | Updated 12:18 am IST - NEW DELHI:

In the wake of several irregularities in banks following the November 8 decision to scrap old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes, the Finance Ministry on Friday said action has been taken against several officials.

While praising banks for their work post-demonetisation, the Ministry in a statement pointed to some cases where officials carried out transactions “in violation of the Reserve Bank of India’s instructions.” It said: “27 officials of various public sector banks have been placed under suspension and six officials have been transferred to non-sensitive posts.”

Meanwhile, the seizure of cash in new currency on Friday grew to over Rs. 5 crore even as the Income-Tax Department said it detected unaccounted income worth Rs. 152 crore after it conducted searches on a dozen premises in Bengaluru and other locations.

I-T officials said the cash found, after searches were launched on Thursday on the premises of two engineers working with the State government, and two contractors, has risen to Rs. 5.7 crore. These notes are in the denomination of the newly introduced currency of Rs. 2000. “Total admission of unaccounted income by the group stands at Rs. 152 crore. Investigations are on,” they said. I-T officials also recovered 7 kg bullion and jewellery weighing 9 kg, worth Rs. 5 crore.

A team of over 50 Income-Tax sleuths and police personnel launched search operations on Thursday and searched premises in Bengaluru, Chennai and Erode (Tamil Nadu).

The Central Board of Direct Taxes, the policy-making body of the tax department, had said in a statement here that “the new notes and bullion are learnt to have been obtained by exchange of demonetised notes by payment of commission of an engineer and a contractor.”

The sleuths had also seized some notes of Rs. 100, demonetised notes of Rs. 500 and a few gold biscuits during the operation, they said, adding the department had to call in note-counting machines and additional staff to ascertain the value of the cash. What had surprised the authorities is the sheer amount of new notes stashed by these individuals at a time when new notes are not available to the common man. —

( With PTI inputs)

 

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