UCO Bank claims WBIDFC's FD receipts fictitious

Asks CBI to probe, suspends 12 employees

UCO Bank today said the fixed deposit receipts of West Bengal Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (WBIDFC) were fictitious and not issued by the bank.

The state-run lender has referred the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and suspended all the 12 employees of its Circus Avenue, Kolkata branch, pending enquiry.

"The fixed deposit certificates of WBIDFC are fake and at no point of time the said instruments were issued by our Circus Avenue branch. The branch has not submitted any rate quotation, which is a prime requisite for accepting bulk deposits. Since our bank has a zero tolerance policy against any violation we have suspended all the 12 employees, pending enquiry. We have also requested CBI to investigate the matter," CK Mukherjee, general manager and circle head of Kolkata region at UCO Bank, told Business Standard.

Last week WBIDFC claimed that around Rs 120 crore was missing from its fixed deposit accounts with UCO Bank's Circus Avenue branch. The infrastructure financing arm of the state government had parked the money with the Kolkata-based bank in two separate transactions.

WBIDFC also said that they transferred the money to the bank's Circus Avenue branch as it offered higher rate of interest than other branches of UCO Bank.

"It is surprising that WBIDFC officials have not attempted to ascertain the veracity of the incident and have not contacted any of our big branches in the city that are authorised to accept bulk deposits...Deposit rates are centralised and it cannot be believed that two branches have quoted different rates," Mukherjee said.

In August, 2012 WBIDFC opened a fixed deposit account with UCO Bank by transferring Rs 59 crore from its account with Bank of India. In January, 2013 the infrastructure financing company opened another fixed deposit account with UCO Bank by transferring Rs 61 crore from its account with Indian Bank. UCO Bank had issued fixed deposit receipts in favour of WBIDFC for both the transactions, according to officials of the state infrastructure finance company.

While reconciliation of its accounts with UCO Bank, WBIDFC noticed that the money was missing. WBIDFC has filed a first information report (FIR) with the local police.

A co-operative bank in West Bengal has also filed a police complaint alleging that Rs 20 crore is missing from its UCO Bank account.