Surat clearing house detects bogus warrant

Close on the heels of detecting five bogus interest warrants, the Surat Bankers Clearing House (SBCH) has detected another forged dividend warrant of the DIP - UTI scheme.

"A bogus DIP - UTI dividend warrant of Rs 1,83,856 was deposited at the Surat branch of Standard Chartered Bank Ltd on December 4, which was presented to us the same day. We learnt that the dividend warrant is fraudulent as the Unit Trust of India has not issued it," SBCH president Narahari Rao said.

"The dividend warrant bears the name of one Vinodkumar Mittal, who has an account in the Rohtak (Haryana) branch of Standard Chartered Bank. We talked to the local officials of the bank, who told us that the warrant was not directly deposited in the bank, but was found in the drop box. We have advised the bank to inquire into the matter and check details of the customer," Rao said.

"This is the first fraudulent dividend warrant to have been detected, but we have come to know that similar bogus warrants of DIP - UTI are in circulation in Surat," he added.

This could cause huge losses to banks. We have asked all our member banks to remain on guard and ensure that bogus warrants are not debited," he added.

Officials had detected five bogus interest warrants in two co-operative banks of Surat on December 3. These warrants were worth over Rs 4.50 lakh each and were issued in the name of The Shipping Credit & Investment Company of India.

It was learnt that the interest warrants were bogus as no such company existed. The two co-operative banks - Prime Co-operative Bank Ltd and Akhandanand Co-operative Bank, would have lost a huge sum, if the warrants were not detected on time.