The Reserve Bank of India has been asked by a Delhi court to evolve a proper mechanism to ensure that bank employees do not siphon public money by manipulating customers'' stock investment accounts and other financial instruments. Special judge Anoop Kumar Mendiratta gave this direction while sentencing suspended Syndicate Bank clerk Praveen Kumar Gupta to three years in jail for diverting over Rs 37 lakh to his accounts by fudging various stock investment accounts and other security instruments with the bank over 12 years ago. The court issued directions to the RBI, terming the fact of the case, unearthed by investigative agency during its probe, as "tip of the iceberg". "The mode adopted by the accused for fraudulent multiple encashing of the same instrument despite maintenance of balancing book in the bank calls for deeper analysis as the same could not have been possible but for want of complete lack of supervision or abdication of duties by senior officials," said the court. "Appropriate guidelines need to be formulated by RBI Governor to be followed by all the banks which may work as benchmark to check the commission of frauds in similar schemes. It is necessary to ensure proper conciliation and accountability of banking transactions by the employees in such schemes," it added. The court also ordered for sending a copy of its judgement to the RBI Governor "for compliance". The court direction came in a case involving falsification, manipulation and tampering of stock investment accounts, ledgers and stock invest instruments by Gupta between 1992 and 1997 to siphon off over Rs 37 lakh.
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