Chennai: CBI books post office staff for alleged malpractice in exchanging old notes

Chennai: The CBI registered a case against three employees of Suramangalam head post office in Salem for alleged malpractice in exchanging old notes worth nearly Rs 50 lakh between November 8 to November 16 after the central government announced demonetisation.

Cases of criminal conspiracy and cheating along with a section under prevention of corruption Act were slapped against V. Vasudevan, postmaster, M. Sekhar, treasurer and Murugesan, cash overseer, all working in Suramnagalam head post office.

CBI sources said that the case was registered on Thursday based on reliable information that the three had exchanged Rs 49.72 lakh worth of old notes in an unauthorised way in a week’s time and obtained pecuniary benefits to themselves.

Of the total Rs 49.72 lakh, an amount of Rs 45.21 lakh was exchanged in an unauthorised way while another Rs 4.51 lakh was exchanged without request slip at exchange counters of the post office.

It may be noted that the various central agencies had been actively hunting for black money holders and government and bank employees who had been illegally helping such black money hoarders to exchange old notes after the central government scrapped old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.

While the income-tax department had been unearthing huge stash of old and new notes, sleuths from enforcement directorate had been following the possible money laundering moves of such black money hoarders while the CBI had been slapping cases on government employees helping such hoarders exchange notes illegally.