State Bank of Sikkim (SBS) denies any role in multi-crore fraud

Gangtok, November 22: The State Bank of Sikkim (SBS) refutes to the allegation against its involvement in multi-crore scam. The Chief General Manager of Bank refutes to allegation mad over the local media since past few week, he said there is no any connection of Bank nor any employees of Bank are involved.
“The Bank would like to take this opportunity to assure the public in general that the accounts which were mentioned in the news reports were opened by the Bank only after following the “Know Your Customer KYC” norms prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India. The account holder had filled up the forms and submitted the requisite supporting documents and the account was opened only after the scrutiny of the documents supplied by the customers.
Adding to this , the new applicants were also introduced to the Bank by our existing account holders. Further contrary to report in certain newspapers that the account were started with Rs 500 only, the Bank would like to state that the “Current Account are started with an initial deposite of Rs 5000 and not Rs 500,” read the press statement. SBS has further clarified that the issuance of cheques book to the holder is done to facilitate the smooth operation of transaction of the account. “ This is normal procedure followed by the Bank in all Current Account maintained with us. The cheques issued to the account holders by the Bank become their personal property and the account holders are themselves responsible for the cheques issued by them. The Bank does not have any say in the amount filled in by the account holders and only upon the presentation of the cheque before the teller can verify for the bank vouch for its authenticity.
Reacting on the newspaper reports about the statement on the reverse side of the cheques on behalf of the SBS making assurance to fulfill the obligation and honoring the cheques on the due date i.e in November 2014, the Bank claims that these cheques were never presented to Bank nor was signed by any officials nor stamped.
“Even if these cheques were presented to Bank officials for signature and seal, it would have still not have been completed since it is not in policy Bank to endorse such cheques in this manner,” it said.
Regarding the issue pertaining to the Internal Bills of Exchange (IBOE), the Bank has clarified its position and said that it deos not deal with any Foreign Exchange or IBoEs.
“Even if the IBoEs are authentic , the Bank would have to seek a permission from Finance Department of Government of Sikkim before any transaction are made in this regard to IBoEs. Hence, without proper scrutiny and prior permission the Bank has no authority to accept any proposals relating to any transactions with regards to any IBoE or Foreign Exchange, “ it said.
“The Bank would like to reiterate that there was no “scam” involving the State Bank of Sikkim and any employees of the Bank. This may be intend to defraud the Bank and any individuals by certain people, but due to the quick action of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) the attempt was thwarted ,” the press statement added.