The Ghaziabad District Cooperative Bank (DCB) reportedly accepted the cash deposit of about `78 crore demonetised currency notes of `500 and1,000 without being authorised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during the banned period taking advantage of earlier authorisation.Krishna Vir  Sirohi, the ex-Chairman of DCB Ghaziabad said due to the political intervention in all cooperative banks, including Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Banks (UPCB), DCB and Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) in the States, the RBI stopped all transactions of de-monetisation, but all cooperative banks in and under DCB Ghaziabad continued transaction of accepting deposits and issuance of new currency notes.

“When I came to know that the Simbhaoli branch of DCB Ghaziabad opened its branch during night from 8.00 pm to 12 am and deposited huge scrapped notes, I complained to the District Magistrate Hapur who intervened and ordered an enquiry,” said former chairman.

“This is not only Ghaziabad which has violated the RBI rules but almost all the DCBs in the State accepted black money of ruling Samajwadi party leaders. I received the complaints that the Meerut DCB also accepted the deposits of political leaders in violation of RBI guidelines to the tune of about `100 crore. Through such tricks the Cooperative banks in UP had transformed black money of rupees over a thousand crore into white despite the RBI banned them further,” said Krishna Vir Sirohi.

Upendra Sarswat, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) cum Secretary of DCB Ghaziabad told The Pioneer that it is a routine business of a bank to accept deposits.

“On several occasions the notifications reach late but bank continues its business so in routine anticipation we accepted the discarded currency.  We maintain lakh of farmers’ saving and loan accounts with us so we have to look after the bank’s interest to protect us from being NPA. So we did it since we possess the bank licence issued by RBI. If any violation found the RBI has power to take action,” said Sarswat.