The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested one Ranjit Kumar Bhattacharya, a cashier with the Bank of Baroda, and other unknown bank officials of a Behala branch in Kolkata for allegedly exchanging over Rs. 50 lakh in demonetised currency.
The case was detected during a surprise check which revealed a huge difference in the number of old currency received and the actual bank records.
Yet another head cashier with the State Bank of Bikaner in Rajasthan’s Dausa branch, Yogendra Singh Meena, has been arrested for allegedly facilitating the exchange of over Rs. 1 crore in old notes.
These cases come after the arrest on Monday of K.C. Veerendra, a local JD(S) politician who also runs a casino, after Rs. 5.7 crore in new notes was seized by the Income-Tax Department from his premises.
The CBI has registered a case against unknown officials of the State Bank of India, the State Bank of Mysore, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, for allegedly conspiring with Veerendra.
The CBI has also taken legal action against officials of Dhanlaxmi Bank and the Central Bank of India on allegations of a similar type.
The CBI had earlier arrested Parashivamurthy , head cashier of the Kollegal branch of the State Bank of Mysore, and another person for allegedly exchanging over Rs . 1.51 crore .
“Four cases each have been registered in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. While in Hyderabad, the cases have been registered for alleged illegal exchanges at various post offices, the four cases in Bengaluru involve bank officials,” an investigation officer said. “The initial cumulative amount as per the cases registered till Tuesday stands at about Rs. 19 crore. The figure may go up during investigations.”
(With inputs from Bengaluru Bureau)
