Seized money to be sent to SBI for safe custody

Chennai: The Election Commission on Monday said the Rs 570 crore seized in Tiruppur would be moved to Coimbatore for safe custody in the chest of the State Bank of India, until the Income Tax authorities verify the claim made by the State Bank of India that the money belonged to the bank.

“The sensational case related to Rs 570 crore cash seizure in Tiruppur will be transferred to the investigation wing of Income Tax department on Tuesday morning as per the order of Election commission of India”, chief electoralofficer Rajesh Lakhoni told DC.

“We have made arrangements to move the cash on Tuesday with paramilitary security cover and it will reach the chest of State Bank of India”, he said, adding that the IT department wanted to count the currency and take over the case.

“The case will now be dealt by IT and Reserve bank for which the
State Bank will be a respondent”. A team of EC officials, helped by the police, seized three containers transporting the money at the Perumanallur-Kunnathur bypass near Tirupur during Friday-Saturday night after a hot chase in Kollywood style.

The containers were kept at the Tirupur collectorate under heavy security, with round-the-clock CCTV surveillance, while the SBI officials negotiated with the EC for its release. The bank said it was moving the money to meet cash shortage in the Andhra region and had the clearance of the Reserve Bank of India to carry out the transfer, which it argued was routine in nature.

The three trucks were headed from Coimbatore to Visakhapatnam SBI main branch for distribution among the branches in the region. Though the trucks had the necessary papers issued by the SBI’s Coimbatore main branch, the registration number of one of the trucks did not match the numbers mentioned in those documents. The bank said it was a ‘clerical error’.

Amid high excitement in the EC and also the media dubbing it the ‘mother of all poll-related seizures’, the EC set up a ‘high-level’ team comprising IT officials, the bank authorities as well as the Commission officers, to examine the documents further submitted by the SBI and decide on the future course.

This process went on for quite some time even as some politicians, such
as the DMK president M. Karunanidhi and the Congress leader and
former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram raised doubts over the large amount of money being moved from one chest to another.