Stepping up measures to combat the flow of black money during the forthcoming polls in five states, the Election Commission has written to the RBI to ensure that banks are not "misused by unscrupulous persons" for bribing voters with cash.
The EC has written the letter to the Reserve Bank of India in the backdrop of an incident where the Income Tax department recently seized cash of Rs12.38 crore belonging to ICICI bank at Delhi's border with Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh).
The amount, suspected not to be conforming to cash movement rules stipulated by RBI, was seized by the I-T department on the directions of the Election Commission.
"...request you (RBI) to conduct a thorough enquiry of the case (seizure at Ghaziabad) and to ensure that the banking channel is not misused by the unscrupulous persons to carry cash to the constituency during election process, for the purpose of bribing the electors," a letter received by the RBI Deputy Governor in Mumbai from the poll body said.
Five states -- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand are going to assembly polls in various phases, begining January 28.
The EC, in its letter, also reminded the RBI that it has earlier written to the banking regulator after it received similar complaints during the assembly polls in Tamil Nadu.
The EC, in the letter, also cited the instance that occurred at Sahibabad in Ghaziabad on January 9 when the cash, being ferried by two private firms Brinks Arya and SIPL, was intercepted and later seized by the I-T department.
The EC said that a number of RBI guidelines which are stipulated to be followed during the movement of cash were not followed in this incident and hence the cash was confiscated.
The EC has drawn up a slew of measures to curb and check the use of money power in the polls including instructing the I-T department and other expenditure surveillance teams to not allow the movement of any cash beyond Rs2.5 lakh without verification, in the poll-bound five states.
