A real life incident reminiscent of Hera Pheri, the hit comedy film starring superstar Akshay Kumar and directed by Priyadarshan in the year 2000, has taken place in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu.

The only difference is that instead of the owners of Star Garage and Star Fisheries who played the protagonists in the movie, characters in this real life Hera Pheri turned out to be the Municipal Corporation of Tiruppur, a nationalised bank and P Gunasekaran, an insurance agent struggling to make both ends meet.

While the Hera Pheri in the Bollywood blockbuster took place because an error in the telephone directory transposed the telephone numbers of Star Fisheries and Star Garage, in the real life version of the movie the comedy of errors was caused by the similarities in bank account numbers of two Corporation Bank customers, Gunasekaran and the Tiruppur Municipal Corporation.

It all began in May 2012 when the Tiruppur Municipal Corporation deposited a demand draft of Rs40.1 lakh with the Corporation Bank that was to be credited into the MP-MlA local Area Development Fund Account which ended with the number 9071. However, the demand draft was credited into account number 9071 belonging to Gunasekaran.

This mix up came to light in 2014 when officials of the Tiruppur Municipal Corpo-ration found that Rs40.1 lakh was missing from their account.

In the meantime, Gunasekaran who was pleasantly surprised by the “windfall” of Rs40.1 lakh in his account, kept mum about it. After waiting for a few months for the discrepancy to be discovered by the bank, he finally decided that it was “divine intervention” and proceeded to spend the money on a house and on the marriages of his son and daughter.

When the bubble finally burst and bank officials contacted Gunasekaran to recover the money from him, the insurance agent told the bank that he had spent the money but would do whatever he could to return the amount. Meanwhile, the Corporation Bank paid the Tiruppur Municipal Corporation the entire money with interest.

However, when Gunasekaran began playing truant and failed to return the cash, the bank lodged a complaint with the police.

“Gunasekaran is not picking up the phone nowadays. He had given us in writing that he would pay the money back but he is avoiding us now,” said the branch manager of Corporation Bank.

The Crime Branch has filed a case against Gunasekaran under Section 403 of the IPC (dishonest misappropriation of property). Madras High Court lawyer R Ravi told The Pioneer that the Corporation Bank is on a strong wicket. “The Indian Contract Act of 1872 is very clear on this issue. Gunasekaran has to pay back the money because the amount credited into his account does not belong to him. He was legally bound to inform the bank about the discrepancy,” Ravi said.