The Bombay High Court on Tuesday pulled up the Mumbai Police over its probe in a complaint by a 53-year-old woman whose Rs 3 crore was siphoned off from her bank account. It also issued notices to HDFC Bank, hours after its relationship manager was arrested in connection with the case, and Reserve Bank of India seeking their response to the woman’s plea in the next hearing.
The court also questioned if it was not the bank’s responsibility to take note of the malpractice when the money was siphoned off “under their nose,” as the people trust a particular bank and what faith they would have in a banking system when a relationship manager takes the person ‘for a ride.’
A bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj K Chavan was hearing the plea by Meenakshi Kapuria, who argued through advocate Rizwan Siddiquee, that her HDFC bank relationship manager Payal Kothari broke her fixed deposits worth Rs 3 crore and transferred it to fictitious accounts and then to Kothari’s own accounts, without the petitioner’s knowledge. She had lodged a police complaint in October.
After the court was informed that the bank’s relationship manager was arrested on Tuesday morning, the bench questioned why the police had to wait until the complainant approached the court and expressed doubt if the police were waiting for the parties to settle the matter.
Siddiquee added that when Rs 3 crore was transferred by the accused into various accounts, no SMS alerts or emails were received by his client. The petitioner alleged that besides Kothari, other bank officials appeared to be involved in the said case.
The plea also claimed that Kothari gained the petitioner’s trust and took blank signed cheques from her by promising and assuring her that her money will be transferred to Mutual Funds, Gold Bonds, NFO etc, and that she would earn more returns on the said investments, as compared to fixed deposits. Siddiquee submitted that Kothari, instead of investing the amount, siphoned off the entire savings of the petitioner.
On Monday, Siddiquee had alleged that Versova Police were pressurising the petitioner to settle the matter with Kothari and had not probed the role of other bank officials.
The bench had asked Dikshit Gedam, the zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) concerned, to remain present in the court the next day.
On Tuesday, a state government lawyer informed the bench that Kothari was arrested the same morning, to which the court questioned why the arrest took so late. “Every day, we are receiving such complaints against police officers from various police stations,” it orally remarked. The lawyer said the police froze Kothari’s bank accounts, which had Rs 30,000 in all.
Gedam informed the court that he would supervise the investigation which has been transferred from Police Inspector (PI) Amol Dhole, against whom departmental inquiry has been initiated, to senior PI Gajanan Pawar.
After Gedam submitted that Kothari had changed the petitioner’s contact details, the bench termed it ‘extremely serious’ and raised concerns over the implication of such acts over senior citizens who put their life savings in banks as security for their old age. It asked if the police had conducted a probe with the bank and said ‘they cannot be allowed to go scot-free.”
The court said such acts ‘cannot be tolerated’ and asked the petitioner to make HDFC Bank’s regional senior official and RBI as parties to the matter. The bench also sought to know details of the amount in the petitioner’s account before and after the FIR was lodged on October 30 and posted further hearing to December 13.
