A bank is usually regarded as the safest place to store one’s money and assets. However, what if the bank employees betray your trust and steal your hard-earned funds? This is exactly what happened to 53-year-old Meenakshi Kapuria. Her relationship manager, 27-year-old Payal Kothari, breached her trust and broke her Rs 3 crore worth of fixed deposits. She then transferred the funds to fake accounts, before eventually siphoning the money into her own accounts. Furthermore, she did not receive any SMS or email notifications.
The alarming matter is related to the prominent HDFC Bank in Mumbai. The case serves as a stark reminder not to put full faith in anyone, even bank employees as Kothari had earned Kapuria’s trust and took blank signed cheques from her, assuring that the money would be invested in mutual funds, gold bonds, new fund offers, and other avenues that would yield higher returns than fixed deposits. One might wonder how this could be possible. In a display of her cunning, Kothari altered the victim’s mobile number and email address in the bank’s records, which is why she did not receive any alerts when the transactions were underway, based on authorities. The latter had lodged a police complaint in October and also approached Bombay High Court.
Fortunately, the culprit was arrested on the morning of 3rd December. The petitioner stated that, in addition to Kothari, other bank officials appeared to be involved in the embezzlement. Meanwhile, the court criticized the Mumbai Police for its handling of the investigation. It also issued notices to HDFC Bank, shortly after the arrest of the accused and to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seeking their response to the woman’s petition at the next hearing. “Ultimately, people trust a particular bank, and a relationship manager takes a person for a ride. What faith will people have now in the banking system,” the furious bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan questioned.
On 2nd December, Kapuria’s lawyer, Rizwan Siddiquee, mentioned that the Versova police were pressuring his client to settle the matter with the offender. The judges then instructed Zonal DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) Dikshit Gedam to be present at the subsequent hearing. The next day, Prosecutor Kranti Hiwrale stated that the police had frozen Kothari’s bank accounts, which contained a total of Rs 30,000. On the other hand, Justice Mohite-Dere questioned the intentions of the police, expressing concern over their suspicious actions in the case.
She asked, “Why does an arrest have to be made only when a complainant comes to the court? And you’re (police) asking parties to settle the matter?” Gedam stated that one more individual might be taken into custody soon. According to him, senior PI (Police Inspector) Gajanan Pawar has taken over the inquiry from PI Amol Dhole and will oversee it. He assured that a departmental investigation would be launched in response to a question regarding Dhole’s dereliction of duty.
“Every day, we are receiving such complaints against police officers from various police stations,” the court pointed out sternly. It refered to the case as “extremely serious” and after inquiring whether the police had conducted an inquiry with the bank, it added, “They can’t be allowed to go scot-free.” The judges expressed their displeasure over the sheer negligence displayed by the bank. Justice Mohite-Dere slammed, “Is there no accountability of any bank when money is siphoned off under their nose?”
Siddiquee referred to an RBI circular. The justices ordered that the RBI and the senior manager of HDFC Bank’s Lokhandwala branch or regional manager in charge of Mumbai be impleaded “considering the manner in which the petitioner was cheated.” They pronounced, “This can’t be tolerated. Today, this is one case that has come up. Let them know what is happening because there are a lot of senior citizens who have parked their money in fixed deposits for their security in old age.”
The matter has been posted for 13th December. The judges also noted that they would like to know how much was in Kapuria’s account both before and after the FIR (First Information Report) was filed on 30th October “because you did not act with promptness, whether the money was siphoned off after registration of FIR.”
Now, the elderly woman is left to fight a legal battle to recover her money, all due to the betrayal of her relationship manager and the recklessness of the bank she had trusted. Ironically, HDFC Bank’s tagline is “We understand your world.” Perhaps they should have focused more on understanding the intentions of their employees or better yet, chosen better employees.
