Travails of a bank fraud whistle-blower

Kochi (Oct 2024)  This is a special thanksgiving article dedicated to Mega Star Amitabh Bachchan for his 82nd birthday on October 11, 2024. He played a big role for me in 2018 and helped to get a big sum (for me) that was swindled by a nationalised bank. I would not be surprised if Bachchan did not remember this incident. An article that I had written on this issue below:-

By Thomas Kannamala 

I detected a major fraud in the Chennai Kilpauk branch of the Oriental Bank of Commerce on January 30, 2018. The nature of fraud included misappropriation of fund, breach of trust, negligence, diversion of funds on the basis of fake documents and causing financial loss to a customer and wrongful gain to a third party – Just Dial India Limited.

I took a special interest in this case, because this particular a/c was in the name of Harrington Post News Weekly, and I happened to be its editor, and the only authorised signatory to it.  

We were kept in the dark about these illegal dealings till we detected it in January 2016. I used to get SMS earlier after every transaction, and an email of my monthly statements.

It is mysterious why the bank chose to remain quiet about these 63 payments over 810 days. When I checked with the Manager, he said a) no intimation is sent to the customer for transactions below Rs.1000/- and the bank had stopped emailing monthly statements, as customers have the facility to access the bank’s website. I could not access the website with the password that the OBC supplied, and this was already brought to the notice of the bank. Incidentally, how many senior citizens could do this?

Fraud: Between November 2016 & March 2018, the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), Kilpauk branch, released 63 payments from the current a/c (10651010010670) of the Harrington Post News Weekly to Just Dial Limited (JDL). This was done based on some old, time-barred and cancelled documents that I had signed in August 2013. (In July 2014, the bank and Just Dial had, in writing, informed me that the documents were cancelled.)

I immediately brought this matter to the notice of the Bank Manager, but nothing happened till March 2018, and the bank went on releasing money to the JDL. Meantime, because of the fraudulent release of funds, my current account balance went down below Rs. 10,000/-. 

Thereafter, the bank began reducing a fine amount too for not maintaining a minimum balance!

Subsequently, I brought this fraud to the notice of the head office of the bank, police, RBI, CBI, Bank Ombudsman and finance ministry. But nothing happened. As all the institutional routes had failed to address my problem, I posted a message to actor Amitabh Bachchan - the brand ambassador of Just Dial Limited at that time, through his Official Facebook page. I had hinted that his association with a company like the JDL could sully his image as well.

The next day, I found a crisp message addressed to nobody beneath my Facebook posting:  

Please attend to this.

I am not stupid enough to believe that a super busy person like Bachchan had gone through my records and wrote this endorsement. But that endorsement, from whichever quarter it had come, did the trick.

The Just Dial promptly returned the money!

Besides the money part of it, I was curious to know how the system worked when a fraud case was reported to authorities by a common citizen.

So I wrote to the bank manager on March 19, 2018 requesting him to lodge a criminal case against the JDL for their clandestine withdrawal of money using invalid and tampered documents. I knew there would be vicarious culpability on the bank as well, and he would do nothing.

Later I sent emails to the bank’s GM (Customer Service), Nodal officer, Ombudsman, hobscchn@cbi.gov.in, sphq@cbi.gov.in, and cgmcepd@rbi.org.in. besides several agencies of the Finance Ministry including the RBI.

I have been expecting a note of appreciation from any one of these agencies for having taken the trouble to bring such a major fraud to their notice, with pucca documentary evidence. I thought at least they would inform me (a) why this was not a fit case for criminal prosecution or (b) the agency concerned to deal with such cases. The bank manager said the OBC bank's legal department was examining the case.

The Bank's Nodal Officer said the `complaint is closed’ after the bank manager had spoken to the account holder, ie me! 

The Ombudsman said it did not come under his purview, and I could seek redress through `other forums’.

So I thought the best `other forum’ was Amitabh Bachchan. It worked and I got my money back.