With the spate of scams being unearthed in banks by investigation agencies and reported by the media, one cannot but sympathise with the plight of bankers. Mind-boggling sums of money fraudulently withdrawn from the banking system even a decade ago by vested interests, with the blessings of the powers that be and with the active connivance of some bank officials, are now being brought to light and reported threadbare.
The managing director of a public sector bank, which has not been faring well, during a book launch where he was one of the guest speakers, lamented having to share the blame for legacy action. He, like some others of his ilk, has the onerous task of not only plugging the loopholes to prevent the recurrence of such dubious transactions, but also has to face a barrage of embarrassing questions and uncharitable comments.
Bankers may be a harried lot now but due credit to some like him for carrying on with a sense of humour. In his opening remarks, the MD succinctly expressed his predicament when he quipped that proverbially it is said that the mortar gets hit only on one side by the pestle, while the mathalam, a musical instrument, gets hit on both sides. Today the banker’s position is still worse for unlike the mathalam, the banker is like a ghatam—an instrument that resembles an earthen pot—that gets banged from all sides!
During a training program for officers in a bank on the pitfalls of casual approaches to investigations, the faculty recalled an interesting case where a charge-sheeted officer involved in a series of financial irregularities was avoiding interrogation by going on unauthorised leave; the vigilance department was waiting for him to join duty.
The investigating officer would periodically send out a letter to the branch manager seeking to know whether the officer had joined duty, for which he would get the stock reply that a reminder had been sent to the last available address of the officer and that he was yet to rejoin duty.
This exchange of correspondence went on for months and the letters were being faithfully filed at both ends. The officer handling the case and the branch manager both got transferred under the periodical transfer policy. The new official entrusted with the probe promptly opened the file, perused the latest correspondence and shot off a one-line missive to the new branch manager, “Has the officer joined duty?”, to which the branch manager promptly replied, “Yes, he has.” And the file was dutifully closed for good!
M S Vaidyanathan
Email: maharajapuram.s.vaidyanathan@gmail.com