Hyderabad: As many as 10 senior officials from a few banks are under scanner of multiple agencies like the Income Tax, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation for illegally diverting new Rs 2,000 currency denominations in a large number in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states.
Following the board member J. Sekhar Reddy’s case, officials found that the new currency was diverted at the transportation stage itself. As per the RBI rules, the new currency from printing press should reach RBI chests and from there it should be distributed to the banks.
But, following the demand of currency, the RBI issued directions to printing presses to release currency to the Specialised Currency Administration Branches (SCAB) of the SBI. The SCAB for Telangana is located in Gun Foundry and for Andhra Pradesh it is in Visakhapatnam.
Bankers got new currency from SCABs in both states in the first week after the demonetisation was announced in order to avoid delay from the RBI. After a few raids, it was found that black money holders obtained new currency denominations from bankers in transportation stage.
An official source from one of the agencies said they were suspecting that nearly 10 senior bank officials helped black money holders. “We are investigating based on serial numbers of the notes. We have sent the details to the Reserve Bank of India for identifying the banks from where the black money holders obtained it,” the official told this newspaper.
