AXIS Bank official arrested in scheme fraud case
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, December 26 2022: An assistant manager of AXIS Bank, Kwakeithel Branch has been arrested in connection with a case taken up by Imphal PS over illegal transfer of lakhs of rupees in name of government sponsored schemes into the saving accounts registered under fake applicants.

The arrested assistant manager has been identified as Kiranjit Wangkheirakpam (32) of Nongmeibung Academy Road, Imphal East.

He was produced before the court of CJM Imphal East on December 22, which remanded him in police custody till December 29.According to the report submitted by the case IO, the Fraud Monitoring Return (FMR) found in an inquiry carried put on September 20 that multiple high value subsidies from government departments had been credited into the internal office account of AXIS Bank Kwakeithel Branch in a suspicious manner on February 26, 2020.In this regard, a bank operation team carried out an inspection on May 27, which found that around Rs 1862.79 lakh had been credited into the office account by government departments as loan subsidies of different schemes, totalling up to 269 credits.

The inspection found that the Branch did not open or have any loan sanction facility pertaining to the same.

Instead of uploading the loan account details of the application, the subsidy claim application forms were uploaded with the poorly-detailed saving bank accounts of the applicants on the portal of the Kwakeithel Branch office.

The forms also had the signatures of the Branch officials to make it easier to claim the applicants' subsidies.

As the loan accounts were not opened under the schemes, no statements for the loan accounts were also uploaded under the schemes, as is required.

The subsidies which were deposited in the saving bank accounts of 266 people were transferred into the bank accounts of the Branch and other banks.

A total of Rs 19.76 lakh was found present in the said accounts.

As the Branch did not sanction any loan or open any such facility, the above could be considered as fraud.

The FMR report mentioned the officials of Axis Bank Limited Kwakeithel Branch, namely assistant manager Kiranjit Wangkheirakpam, manager Hom Bahadur Basnet, deputy manager Khoirom Santosh and assistant manager Yumkhaibam Sabir Khan as accused in the case.

During the inquiry, two application forms of PMEGP Scheme, 12 sanction letters without signature, one sanction copy under PMEGP scheme, one official letter, one PMEGP beneficiary list financed by AXIS Bank Kwakeithel Branch and three Margin Money Claims of PMEGP were recovered.

During questioning, Kiranjit confessed that he committed the fraud with Hom Bahadur Basnet (32) s/o Nar Bahadur Basnet of Nungphou Nepali Village, Kangpokpi.

They manipulated the PMEGP portal and uploaded Margin Money Claim forms signed by Hom Bahadur Basnet on the portal for claiming the subsidy money, instead of sending the same to the Central/Head Quarters of the Bank for approval.

Afterwards, the subsidies were transferred into the main account of the bank.

The bank staff did not open a separate loan account, as is required.

Instead of maintaining the loan account of beneficiaries/applicants for 3 years in Term Deposit Receipt (TDR), the subsidies were transferred into the saving accounts of the beneficiaries/ applicants.

The IO then stated in his report that there is need to further question Kiranjit with regard to the details of the 266 accounts and the role of the account holders, in addition to seizure of relevant documents and determining the roles of all the accused persons in the case.

As such, the IO made a prayer for remanding accused Kiranjit to 8 days in police custody, which the Court accepted and sent him (Kiranjit) to police remand for 8 days till December 29 .

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