VADODARA, June 24: January 13: The Padra police register a case against a couple of officials of the State Bank of India, Padra branch, for ``misusing'' a Rs 3 crore fixed deposit of the Ahmedabad Cooperative Society, Ahmedabad.March 15: Branches of the Bank of Baroda in Surat are inundated with similar complaints from cooperative societies.The first case was turned over to the State government's Crime Investigation Department, while J R Sharma, additional director, Income Tax, Surat, probed into a few of the subsequent cases. Between January and June, around six senior bank officials have been transferred, reportedly to ``punishment postings''. Even as the investigation in these cases continue comes news of yet another scam in the Parle Point branch of the Bank of Baroda. Sarvodaya Sahakari Sharafi Mandli Ltd, a Balasinor-based company, had deposited Rs 50 lakhs (FDR no 0154631) on November 21, 1997, for a one-year period at the branch. As the maturity date approached, some office-holders of the mandli approached the bank, only to learn that ``they'' had ``borrowed'' Rs 45 lakhs of the FD. Mandli office-bearers allege that the bank either committed a bloomer or ``misused'' the deposit. Express Newsline is in possession of the correspondence between the bank and the mandli in this context.According to sources in banks, cooperative societies and the police, the scams being unearthed one after the other pointed to only one thing: a modus operandi thought up by unscrupulous elements in some banks and cooperative societies to mop up lakhs of public money. While the investigations remain a hush-hush affair, the sleuths are said to be focusing on the fact that that the FDs were deposited away from the town or city the cooperative society was located in, despite the fact that several nationalised banks in their home towns offered interest rates at par. This, according to sources, indicated that the bank officers offered some incentive (read commission) to the depositors. Illegal, true, but also off-the-record, so rarely raked up.Once the money has been deposited in the bank, it is lent out to interested parties, sometimes allegedly at interest rates at par with the open market. These transactions, too, don't make their way into bank books, though they are allegedly carried out with the active knowledge of a coterie of bank officers and cooperative officials or their agents.``These cases'', according to sources, ``come out in the open only when the accrued loot is not shared out among all those involved, whether in the bank or the cooperative society. But the ones actually guilty go unexposed.''Bank of Baroda (Surat) vigilance chief R S Vyas and chief manager (customer service Vadodara), Dipankar Mookerjee admit that there are complaints, but refuse flatly to give details about the cases, maintaining they weren't allowed to talk to the Press.Other senior officials went only so far as to say that the whole `affair' was being thoroughly investigated by the Mumbai-based vigilance headquarters. One official, however, said on condition of anonymity that the guilty would be booked as the bank procedure was fool-proof. ``But it will take time, may be another couple of months'', he added.
