Rs 10 crore old notes seized from private car in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Police in Mumbai seized invalidated .Rs 500 currency notes worth .Rs 10 crore from a private car at Chembur on Thursday night. The cash belonged to the Vaidyanath Urban Co-operative Bank controlled by BJP MP Pritam Munde.

The seizure also had Rs 10 lakh worth new currency notes. One of the three men in the vehicle identified himself as the branch manager of the Pune branch of the bank and said that the cash was being transported to the branch.

Police officials, however, took the vehicle into custody and called up income-tax officials. Mumbai Police refused to comment on the incident but the fact that the money was in gunny and transported in a private car instead of a cash van have raised anatural suspicion.

Pritam Munde, however, told reporters in New Delhi that the money was accounted for and there was nothing illegal. “It was going from one bank to another. This was no unaccounted money. It was a routine cash transfer.

There is an entry of the transferred cash in our books. We could have understood if the seized cash was of new notes but these are old notes deposited by the common people in our banks,” she told news channels. The bank in a statement said that the seized cash was part of a larger transaction of .Rs 25 crore earlier transported from the main Parli branch to Mumbai.

The statement said that the cash was brought to Mumbai as nationalised banks in Parli refused to accept the deposits. “ .Rs 25 crore was brought to Mumbai, out of which .Rs 15 crore was deposited in other banks and the .Rs 10 crore was being transported to the Pune branch.

The .Rs 10 lakh in new notes was meant for payment for our customers in the Pune branch, the statement said. According to government sources, bank accounts of the Parli branch are being scrutinised. ET tried to contact Pritam Munde for her comments but was unable to.