A Delhi court has held a bank clerk guilty of cheating four persons of Rs. 1.5 lakh by issuing them forged ‘double benefit deposit’ receipts of different amounts, and pocketing the money deposited by them in 1999. According to the complaint lodged with the Hauz Qazi police by then manager of the Hamdard Dawakhana branch of the Bank of India , bank clerk Rakesh Kumar Gupta had stolen one double benefit deposit receipt book containing 100 leaves and fraudulently issued four receipts to as many customers.
He alleged that the transactions were not supported by any voucheror entry in the books of the bank. All the four cheated customers and the branch manager of the bank supported the prosecution case in their evidence before the court. “No record of the amounts received by Rakesh Gupta was found in the record of the branch and it was apparent that the money received from the customers was pocketed by Rakesh Gupta and not deposited in the bank,” the branch manager said in his evidence.
“From the testimony of bank witness PW-8 (branch manager), it is further clear that accused Rakesh Kumar Gupta had stolen double benefit deposit receipts from the bank and the money received from the customers was pocketed by the accused as it has not been deposited in the bank and no record of the amount has been found in the branch of the bank,” Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Kumar Rampuri said. The forensic expert, who examined the receipts, said, “The accused had forged the receipts as his handwriting had matched with admitted ones.”
“Accused Rakesh Kumar stands convicted under Sections 381 (theft by clerk), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC,” the Magistrate said.
