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UCO Bank has lodged complaints of two alleged frauds — one related to the West Bengal Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (involving Rs 120 crore) and the other linked to West Bengal State Cooperative Bank (involving Rs 20 crore) — with the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The Bank’s officer on special duty, S.C. Sharma told Business Line that the lender had complained of alleged “frauds” related to its Circus Avenue branch and the Hastings branch in the city. “The WBIDFC-related complaint was filed on March 14 with the CBI fraud cell in New Delhi. The other related to the WBSCB was lodged on March 16”, the official said.
For a bank, it is mandatory to file complaints regarding such “high-value” (over Rs 15 crore) frauds with the CBI. Sharma said though the CBI was yet to swing into action, the Kolkata Police was continuing with the investigation.
Racket
On a complaint by the State Government unit — WBIDFC — on March 13, Kolkata Police arrested the branch manager of the UCO Bank Circus Avenue branch last Thursday.
However, according to sources, no arrest has so far been made in relation to the alleged fraud involving Hastings branch of the branch. The cooperative bank, which was also defrauded by fake fixed deposit certificates, also filed an FIR with the police.
Bank officials said five staff members of the Hastings branch and 12 at the Circus Avenue branch have been suspended.
“It seems a racket involving people within the organisations and the bank was behind the wrongdoings”, said a source.
UCO Bank claimed on Saturday that the WBIDFC did not have any current or term deposit account with the Circus Avenue branch of the bank. Neither did the branch submitted any bulk deposit rate quotation to the corporation, it said.
The bank also said that the so-called two fixed deposit certificates, allegedly issued by the Circus Avenue branch to WBIDFC, were “fake”. The bank further said, “at no point of time the said bank branch has issued any deposit certificate” to WBIDFC.
According to WBIDFC, the corporation had transferred Rs 59 crore from Bank of India on August 30 last year and deposited it to Circus Avenue branch of UCO Bank. “On January 10 this year, we further transferred Rs 61 crore from Indian Bank to the UCO Bank’s branch. WBIDFC obtained two separate fixed deposit certificates from the bank, signed by the branch manager”, Avirup Sarkar, Chairman of the WBIDFC, had told Business Line last week.
jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in
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