‘Irregularities’ in exchanging demonetised currencies: CBI raids houses of 3 post office officials

The CBI looked into how the post office managed to exchange almost Rs 6 lakh without having enough funds to do so.

The CBI on Thursday raided and seized documents from the houses of three Jhansi head post office officials. They were booked for allegedly not following currency exchange rules soon after the demonetisation announcement last year. According to CBI officials, the post office’s chief treasurer Pooran Lal Ahirwar, then deputy postmaster A K Sandilya and systems manager Vijay Singh Hyaran were booked at the Lucknow Anti-Corruption Bureau on Wednesday for, among others charges, criminal conspiracy. They allegedly fudged official records and ignored mandatory identification requirements to shell out over Rs 21 lakh in cash.

A CBI official told The Indian Express that they initiated an inquiry into the Jhansi head post office following a tip-off. On November 8, a day after the announcement, Lal and Sandilya, the CBI alleged, siphoned off Rs 10 lakh in Rs 100 denomination notes from the post office. They altered official records to show the number of Rs 100 notes with the office as “nil” and entered having received demonetised notes of face value Rs 10 lakh from the public.

On November 11, 2016, the head post office received Rs 9.4 lakh in new currency notes to be available for exchange to customers. The report with the divisional post office, however, claimed that the head post office exchanged demonetised notes of face value Rs 15.4 lakh, the CBI official said. The CBI looked into how the post office managed to exchange almost Rs 6 lakh without having enough funds to do so. The CBI official said they found Vijay Singh, who was supposed to upload daily exchange figures to the divisional post office, had made the exchanges without proper demand form and identification reports. This was done with chief treasurer Ahirwar’s knowledge, the CBI claimed.

Further, between November 10 and November 21 last year, the cash balance book showed that over Rs 1 crore was issued to various clerks deputed for exchanging old currency notes after obtaining demand forms and IDs. According to figures from the demand forms, only around Rs 95.63 lakh were exchanged. This confirmed that around Rs 11 lakh was exchanged without demand forms, according to the CBI. Lal and Sandilya were joint custodians of the cash at the head post office during the period demonetised notes were being exchanged, the CBI found.