A major initiative by a local team from Udaipur, with assistance from local news reporting teams, has finally resulted in a FIR being lodged against officers and staff of ICICI Bank, one of the largest banks in India.

The matter relates to poor, illeterate and gullible customers being cheated of their hard earned money by staff of the bank.

Special Organisation Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police has lodged a FIR against staff of various branches of ICICI Bank and head of ICICI Prudential Rohit Saini, alongwith other staff, who were involved in the racket.

All named in the FIR have been accused of cheating farmers, elderly, poor families, illiterate, widows and other such gullible and believing customers into sharing their credentials with the organisations, and issuing insurance policies under the guise of fixed deposits.

SOG IG Dinesh MN, said that on preliminary examination of the complaint, fraud was discovered. Officers of the bank and insurance company used credentials of customers and fraudulently issued policies.

Addl SP of SOG Udaipur, Mahaveer Singh Ranawat had conducted the initial investigation and sent his report to the SOG HQ at Jaipur, following which this action was taken.

Led by Jawahar Nagar, Udaipur resident Nitin Balchandani, who is an ex employee of the insurance company, the victims – Bhagwanlal Gadri (Mavli), Manohar Das Vaishnav (Vasni Kala) and Khemraj Meghwal (Veerdholiya) registered the FIR against Udaipur branch of ICICI Bank and other branches of ICICI Prudential in Rajasthan, accusing them of fraudulently issuing insurance policies and fixed deposits. A case of fraud, dishonesty, misusing credentials, providing wrong information like age, income, etc which are violation of IRDA norms and an illegal nexus between employees of ICIC Bank and ICICI Prudential has been lodged under section 467, 468, 471, 406, 420 and 120B of the IPC.

Case 1: Bhagwanlal Gadri

Gadri had applied for Loan under Kisan Credit Card scheme, and ICICI Bank employees deducted Rs. 50,000 from the loan proceedings and gave him an insurance policy.  He was handed over the Insurance policy against which he was charged a one time payment of Rs. 50,000.  However, later he was asked to pay Rs 50,000 every year, failing which, his insurance policy will lapse and he will lose the initial premium paid.  his qualification in the policy document was said to be 12 class pass, where Gadri has just studied till 5th grade.  His PAN card and signature on the policy document are also forged and his annual income is stated as Rs 3 lac whereas he is in the BPL category.  All documents were in English.

Case 2: Manohardas Vaishnav

Manohardas retired from government service on 28th August.  His retirement proceedings were transferred to the ICICI Bank branch in Fatehnagar. Bank officers, in liaison with officers of the insurance company, issued Manohardas an Insurance policy under the guise of making a fixed deposits.  Further, the policy was such that the policy holder had to deposit a sum of Rs. 1,01,000 every year, failing which, the policy will lapse and the premium paid shall be forfeited.  His income, which was in the form of a monthly pension of Rs 1,850 was also over stated and fraudulently verified to get him to be eligible for the policy.  Further, as per IRDA norms, such a policy cannot be issued to any individual over 60 years of age.  His recorded age in the policy application was also understated.