The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a criminal offence against the then senior manager of the Union Bank of India for allegedly committing cognisable offences of conspiring with private persons to facilitate the misappropriation of public money by the exporters who claimed illegal duty drawback and other export incentives, obtained illegal gratification, abused his official position as a public servant and aided the forgery and the use of forged documents as genuine.
According to the CBI, its Anti-Corruption Branch in Mumbai had received a complaint from the branch head of Union Bank of India in Mumbai wherein it is alleged that a senior manager with the bank knowingly accepted forged Currency Deposit Forms (CDFs) without verification from seven exporters during 2017. The accused public servant was earlier probed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2017 in connection with the alleged CDF scam. During the investigation conducted by the DRI into these exporters, the manager had admitted to have accepted a total bribe/commission of Rs 12 lakh, at the rate of Rs 10 per USD from two middlemen to accept the forged CDFs and supporting export documents.
"There is a direct allegation of unaccounted money received into the bank accounts of the public servant, his family members from unknown sources of income. It is also alleged that the manager did not follow the guidelines related to the High Value Transactions and thereby facilitated the said fake high value transactions. In addition, he routed the transactions through a suspense account other than the one that was prescribed in the banks internal circular, caused debit to the said suspense account and corresponding credit to the account of the Exporters by RTGS before the actual exchange amount was received from the FFMC and thereby committed violations of the bank's guidelines," the CBI alleged in its FIR.
The accused has been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal misconduct, forgery of valuable security, forgery for the purpose of cheating, using forged documents as genuine and taking gratification other than legal remuneration.
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