DENA BANK Vs. BHOPAL SAHKARI DUGDH SANGH MARYADIT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, Dena Bank, has filed the present petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India and the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993, being aggrieved by the order dtd. 9/7/2012 passed in Appeal No.R-45/2012 by the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal, Allahabad (hereinafter referred to as "DRAT").

(2.) The Respondent No.1 opened a current account in the Itarsi Branch of the petitioner Bank on 8/10/1993 vide Current Account No.CA/Gen-767. The Respondent No.1 is engaged in the business of the sale of milk and other related products through a chain of authorised distributors/dealers. The Respondent No.1 had authorised its representative wholesale distributors to deposit the sale proceeds in the said current account from time to time. The petitioner bank used to transfer the said amount in a scheduled interval to another bank account of Respondent No.1 at Bhopal.

(3.) During the course of business, the Respondents No.2 and 3 were appointed one by one as the wholesale distributors/authorised representatives of the Respondent No.1. In April 2006, during internal auditing of the branch account of Itarsi Branch of petitioner-Bank, there was a mismatch in the transaction between the Head Office and the Branch Office of the petitioner- Bank. Thereafter, a detailed investigation was conducted through officials of the Regional Office of the petitioner-Bank at the said Itarsi Branch, and a detailed report dtd. 11/5/2006 was submitted. The preliminary report revealed that authorized representative of Respondent No.1 i.e. Respondents No.2 & 3 in connivance with two erring staff of the petitioner-Bank i.e. Respondents No.4 and 5, had fraudulently manipulated various Bank transactions i.e. without making any deposits by Respondents No.2 and 3, the Respondents No.4 and 5 used to make entries and issue a false acknowledgement of deposit slips. It was found that the respondent Nos. 2 & 3 authorised representatives/wholesalers of respondent No.1 at Itarsi, in connivance with two erring staff of the petitioner bank i.e. the respondent Nos. 4 & 5, had been fraudulently manipulating various accounts and giving excess credit to the aforementioned account of respondent No.1 from time to time as per the settlement.