Chennai: President of All India Overseas Bank Employees Union (AIOBEU) L. Balasubramanian, a retired special cadre assistant of the Indian Overseas Bank, was on Thursday arrested by Central Bureau of Investigation sleuths for allegedly masterminding a recruitment scam in the bank in TN four years ago. The scam related to the engagement of 950 temporary messengers and sweepers for the bank in 2010.
The CBI probe revealed that Balasubramanian hastened their permanent absorption to extract illegal gratification from them, a CBI press release said. He introduced age and educational qualifications criteria to be able to manipulate them. He would direct the regional union representatives to collect illegal gratification from probable candidates of which he was the main beneficiary. Most of the candidates thus recruited were found ineligible and subsequently terminated from service, the CBI said.
Searches were also conducted at 18 places throughout TN in this regard. All the regional union secretaries, vice-president and general secretary of the AIOBEU and a few officials from the IOB head office were also arrested in August this year.
A CBI official said that people recruited as daily-wage workers in the bank were made regular in 2010, the union having influenced the recruitment process. Though the educational qualification for the post of sweeper and messenger was SSLC fail, many applicants who had passed class 10 or plus-2 produced fake certificates to the contrary.
