NEW DELHI
A customer’s missing ancestral jewellery worth over Rs 30 lakhs from a bank locker has landed Odisha bank officials in trouble, with the CBI registering an FIR against the manager and locker in-charge of the bank for criminal breach of trust.
In fact, the customer’s main complaint said that first he was made to shift his valuables from an old locker to a new one and later the entire new locker became untraceable.
Ingita Das, officer-cum-locker in-charge, Canara Bank, Chandi Chhak Branch, Cuttack, and the bank manager are facing a CBI inquiry on the complaint of Himanshu Patnaik and his wife Jyotsna Rani Patnaik, who had approached the High Court of Orissa after investigation by Odisha police failed to yield results.
Earlier, the EOW, Crime Branch, Odisha registered a case over the 2017 incident and conducted an investigation before filing a closure report after it failed to make much headway.
While directing the CBI to probe the matter, the high court said, “This Court has no hesitation to quash the final form that has been submitted in the present case. Accordingly, the same is hereby quashed. Further, the investigation of the case is transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.” Accordingly, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, EOW, ClD, CB, Bhubaneswar were directed to pass on the case records to the CBI.
Patnaik’s petition before the high court said that, initially, the locker was allotted in favour of his parents. After the unfortunate death of his parents, the bank allotted him the safe deposit locker facility in 1994.
His complaint said that in January 2013, the bank authorities informed him about the availability of a better positioned locker inside the strong room. Accordingly, vide letter dated 29 January 2013, the petitioners were requested to surrender the SDL No.G-l/90, which was accepted on 4 March, and accordingly, the petitioners were summoned to the bank on 3 March 2013 for allotment of the new locker. Upon completion of documentation and other formalities, Patnaik was allotted a new locker bearing No.8, which was placed in the middle of the cabinet inside the strong room of the bank. Thereafter, they shifted all their valuables from the old locker to the new one.
The complaint said that this was the first and only time that they operated the locker till they found the entire locker missing in November 2017. The bank staff told the Patnaik couple that their locker had been surrendered and they were no longer authorised to access it. The bank staff even claimed that the locker key in the complainant’s possession was not a genuine one and it did not belong to any locker kept in the bank.
Patnaik said in his complaint that the locker register showed overwriting on the entries made earlier.