BENGALURU: Gold ornaments, weighing 646.70 gm and worth Rs 40 lakh, are missing from the safe deposit locker of the Kamalanagar branch of the Indian Bank on West of Chord Road in the city. The missing gold ornaments were pledged by customers.
The incident came to light when the zonal manager of the Indian Bank visited the branch recently to verify cash and gold ornaments kept in the strongroom and safe deposit lockers.
Since Branch Manager Niranjan Kuppan and Assistant Manager Manuel Jayasheel did not respond positively when enquired about the missing ornaments, the zonal manager filed a complaint with the Basaveshwara Nagar police station.
In the first information report registered on May 19, Kuppan and Jayasheel were arrayed as accused No 1 and 2, respectively. Along with them, Sanjay Kumar BN, working as an attender on daily wages at the bank, was shown as accused No 3. Apprehending arrest, Sanjay Kumar approached the 59th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court seeking anticipatory bail.
After hearing the prosecution and the petitioner’s counsel on May 31, Judge Somashekar A said that in the FIR, police have stated that there is some suspicion against the petitioner. At this stage, prima facie it appears that the petitioner being an attender in the bank was not entrusted with lockers or keys where ornaments were kept. It is a general rule that the branch manager will keep the locker keys of the customers but not the attender, the judge said.
The judge also noted that for every bank, there is CCTV surveillance and the police and the complainant can look at it and find the real culprit. Without that the attender cannot be made responsible for committing the theft in the bank. The investigation is yet to be begun and at this stage, it is not proper to express the merits or demerits of the case. It is improper to say that the accused committed the theft as alleged by the prosecution, the judge observed.
Granting anticipatory bail to Sanjay Kumar, the court imposed conditions that he should execute a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh with a surety for the like sum, surrender before the jurisdictional magistrate within 10 days and file a regular bail petition.