Mumbai: Two bank employees booked for siphoning off ₹1.19 crore

The Powai police have booked two Bank of Baroda employees for allegedly siphoning off ₹1.19 crore in the past 18-months.

According to the first information report (FIR) registered on Saturday, based on a complaint lodged by Maruti Tiwari, manager of the Powai branch of the bank, five to six suspicious transactions in a customer account were detected.

A probe conducted by the bank found that suspicious transactions were linked to an account in the Visakhapatnam branch of the bank, opened in the name of one Kartik Kshatriya.

Further inquiry revealed more such illegitimate transactions. “Bank’s internal inquiry revealed that from July 3, 2019, to February 18, 2021, illegitimate transactions worth ₹1.19 crore were done from the accounts of various bank customers to the bank account in Visakhapatnam,” states the FIR.

“Bank documents mentioned that money was transferred to the account through cheques. But the account holder concerned had never issued the cheques,” said a police officer from Powai police station.

On checking the records, the involvement of two bank employees surfaced. An inquiry revealed that a scale 1 officer Pawan Tankala and clerk Harshada Bhosale were behind these siphoning off of funds.

The bank manager Tiwari then approached the police.

The police have booked Tankala and Bhosale under sections 408 (criminal breach of trust by an employee), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code. However, no one has been arrested so far.