Ex-bank manager booked for misappropriation of funds

Jammu: A former manager of a bank was on Wednesday booked for misappropriation of funds in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur district, a spokesman of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) said.
An FIR has been registered against the accused Amit Gupta, the dismissed branch manager of Devika Urban Cooperative Bank Ltd, Chenani (Udhampur), under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the official said.
He said the verification, conducted at the bank's request, revealed that Gupta indulged in various illegal acts like opening of fictitious accounts, withdrawal or transfer of funds from different accounts, disbursement of loan amount without approval, disbursing of demand loan without security as well as failure in safeguard of security obtained in loan cases.
It also surfaced that an amount of over Rs 1.76 crore has been misappropriated by him during his tenure as the manager of Udhampur branch from 2014. Out of the misappropriated amount, over Rs 1.52 crore stands recovered while an amount of Rs 23,68,456 is still recoverable, the spokesman said.
He said Gupta accepted during the course of verification that he was guided by some other senior bank officers, who forced him to make advances, use of product OD (Overdraft) against deposit without obtaining any security as well as to create fixed deposits in the staff category to get the staff benefits in rate of interest.
“The role of other such officers is to be looked into during investigation,” the spokesman said.
He said the bank management terminated Gupta’s services after a departmental inquiry for abuse of official position, dishonesty and fraud, embezzlement of public money for deriving personal benefits as a result of which a loss has been caused to the public exchequer as well as the bank.