Three years on, Bengaluru police stations stuck with piles of demonetised notes

The police have to keep them in custody as evidence in ongoing court cases, but are constrained by space as police stations do not have locker rooms. 
Several police officers pointed out that police stations need separate locker rooms to store all the evidence. | ( Photo | EPS )
Several police officers pointed out that police stations need separate locker rooms to store all the evidence. | ( Photo | EPS )

BENGALURU: Three years after high-value currency notes were demonetised by the Narendra Modi-led government in November 2016, the police find themselves stuck with a peculiar problem. Heaps of demonetised currency notes, seized during raids and related to other crimes like theft, are piled up at police stations across the state.

The police have to keep them in custody as evidence in ongoing court cases, but are constrained by space as police stations do not have locker rooms. 

The government had earlier claimed that most of the old currency notes issued by the Reserve Bank of India had been recovered and accounted for. But TNIE found that demonetised notes worth lakhs are lying in most of the police stations across the state.

In Bengaluru alone, Rs 81.3 lakh worth of demonetised and also fake currency notes were seized till July this year. The city saw the highest seizure this year followed by Tumkuru with Rs 1.06 lakh. Last year, the state recorded seizure of Rs 4.75 crore in demonetised currency notes. Belagavi, with more than Rs 1 crore worth of demonetised notes, saw the highest, followed by Bengaluru at Rs 27.1 lakh.  

“When any property is seized, if it is of high value, then it is sent to the state treasury. Otherwise, it is stored in the local police station itself as court property with a receipt. The property will be registered as PF (Property Fund),” Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil told TNIE.

Several police officers pointed out that police stations need separate locker rooms to store all the evidence.

But several police stations do not have locker rooms and the seized demonetised notes are stored in steel almirahs or wooden cupboards. “We have to manage with whatever space we have. We just keep all the properties in one cupboard,” said a police inspector.

“Those who lost money are stuck unless they can provide solid evidence about its source and get it verified. But the court has to take a decision on whether money equalling the same value can be returned to the victim. Usually, half the money will be unaccounted for", said lawyer Shakeel Mohammed.

Besides, the dilemma before the police and those who lost the money is that technically, possession of more than 10 of the old currency notes is illegal.

If the police return the old notes to the victim of a fraud after the case has concluded in court, that person will be in possession of a large number of old currency notes which have no financial value, and amounting to crime, according to social activist and Hindustani Biradari vice-chairman Vishal Sharma.

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