Branch manager banks on wife for Rs35-lakh fraud in Mumbai

He hatched a cunning plan, but the loopholes he left proved he was just too clever by half.

A year and a half ago, Sumit Raj Sinha, 32, the branch manager of the Development Credit Bank (DCB), Prabhadevi, issued two pay orders collectively valued at Rs26.82 lakh to ‘advocate’ Suman Ravindra Singh. He then resigned, citing “better prospects elsewhere”.

But during a recent verification of expenses in Sinha’s tenure, bank officials became suspicious of the pay orders. It emerged that the orders bore forged signatures of the bank’s vice-president Kushal Shetty.

A thorough check of the bank’s panel of advocates showed Suman was not a member of the panel. Further investigation yielded other instances of Sinha similarly defrauding the bank, the total amounting to Rs34.48 lakh.

The two pay orders were traced to Suman’s savings account in the Bank of India’s small scale industrial branch at Andheri (East). The DCB officials then went to Suman’s Andheri (East) residence, where they learnt that she was Sumit Sinha’s wife.

They also learnt that Suman did not know that her husband had made her an advocate for DCB’s panel.

The police said Sinha was appointed assistant manager in the bank’s recovery department in June 2007. His job was to recover loan amounts from customers. He was promoted as manager of the Prabhadevi branch in April 2008.

His resignation came in December the same year.

Sinha was arrested on Monday for forgery, cheating and criminal breach of trust after Shetty lodged a complaint.

The police recovered Rs15 lakh from Sinha, who has been remanded in police custody till July 2 by the Bhoiwada metropolitan magistrate’s court.