A day after the city police seized demonetised currency, originally valued at ₹44.7 crore, from Dhandapani, a businessman’s shop-cum-residence in Kodambakkam, no central agency came forward either to prosecute or proceed against him.
The demonetised currency bundles, weighing nearly a tonne, were handed over to a metropolitan magistrate’s court in Saidapet.
This was the largest seizure of demonetised currency in Chennai.
Earlier, police had seized demonetised notes worth ₹1.2 crore from two persons in March in Shenoy Nagar. In the present case, immediately after the seizure, police personnel had to count the notes using cash-counting machines.
The took six hours to complete — from Wednesday midnight till dawn.
On Thursday morning, they had to recount the notes and it took another six hours. A police officer said, “We will be held responsible if there is any discrepancy in numbers. Hence, we had to recount the notes.”
‘No offer of probe’
Assistant Commissioner of Police A.P. Selvam told The Hindu on Friday, “So far, no central agencies have come forward to proceed with the case. We are empowered by Section 102 of Criminal Procedure Code to seize the currency, and prepared a seizure report, besides opening a First Information Report (FIR).”
The notes were handed over to the 17th metropolitan magistrate court in Saidapet for safe custody. We are now formally sending a letter about the seizure to the Income Tax Department and the Reserve Bank of India.”
There is still no concrete answers to queries on the source of money. Police officers added that there was no criminality, such as cheating or forgery, involved in the case.
