3-yr RI, fine for bank manager, accountant

Hoshiarpur, April 19

The Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court here on Thursday sentenced a former manager and accountant of Cooperative Bank to three years’ rigorous imprisonment (RI) and a fine of Rs 10,000 each in a fraud case amounting to Rs 21,718,234 (over Rs 2 crore) with the bank.

If the convicts are unable to pay the penalty, they will have to undergo an additional imprisonment for one month. In Hoshiarpur Cooperative Bank, a fake demand draft scam had come to light and a case was filed by the bank management on December 31, 2008, regarding the fraud of Rs 21,718,234.

It was alleged that the bank’s branch manager Gurdev Kaur, a resident of Preet Nagar, Hoshiarpur, and the bank's accountant Ram Kaur, alias Kulvir Kaur, a resident of Purhiran, had embezzled the said amount in connivance with their other colleagues.

After this, both were removed from their posts.

Bank officials had said in their complaint that the said officials had forged demand drafts in collaboration with their colleagues and had embezzled the said amount. When the actual demand drafts of those numbers were presented by the bearers in other banks, they were told that their DDs had already been cleared. These had been cashed by the accused. After this, the city police had filed cheating and fraud cases against Gurdev Kaur and Ram Kaur. Today, the court gave its judgment. — OC