Another illiterate man loses Rs 1 lakh to ex-SBI staffer’s con

Vadodara: A former contractual employee of State Bank of India (SBI) allegedly siphoned Rs one lakh of a resident of Padra taluka.

The accused Jignesh Mali, who is already facing two criminal cases at Gorwa and Padra police stations, has conned one Chhagan Mali. He had had cheated another Padra resident Chandu Mali earlier in the same way.

The fraud came to light when the Chhagan approached SBI’s Jaspur branch manager on April 10. According to the complaint lodged by the manager Raj Kumar Yadav at Padra police station, Chhagan wanted to renew his fixed deposit (FD) of Rs 90,000 which had registered in 2010. When Yadav checked the system, it was known that Chhagan had taken a loan of Rs 1 lakh in August 2015 against his FD. When Yadav showed his loan application to Chhagan, he said that he had never signed on any application as he cannot read nor write and uses thumb print for signature.

Finding it strange, Yadav checked the system further to find that the loan amount was deposited in a savings bank account of Chhagan at personal banking business unit (PBBU) of the bank at Race Course road. From that account, the money was then transferred further to an account held jointly by Jignesh and one Savita.

Yadav then informed the regional office regarding the siphoning of money. After a probe, the regional office of the bank asked Yadav to register an FIR against Jignesh. The probe also revealed that Chhagan had never opened a savings account at PBBU and that could also have been opened by Jignesh through forgery.

Last week too, another similar complaint was registered against Jignesh for siphoning of Rs 2.6 lakh of Chandu by using quick overdraft against term deposit facility of the bank in a similar manner.