Punjab National Bank has assured customers that all genuine claims will be honoured after allegations of large-scale financial irregularities surfaced at its Greater Noida branch, saying it has already settled three claims worth 43 lakh rupees and is examining other complaints on priority. The assurance follows days of anger among account holders who say money disappeared from their savings accounts and fixed deposits without their knowledge or authorisation.
The controversy came to light after nearly two dozen customers complained about missing funds. An FIR has been registered against unidentified bank employees under Section 316(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with criminal breach of trust, following a complaint filed by customer Shrichand and other account holders.
The case was registered at the Beta-2 police station in Greater Noida, and the bank's vigilance team is working alongside the police cybercrime team on the investigation.
According to the complaint, the alleged losses suffered by 21 individuals exceed 11.24 crore rupees, with two account holders claiming losses of more than one crore rupees each. Local account holders, however, have put the estimated scale of the alleged fraud at around 35 crore rupees, claiming that savings accounts, fixed deposits and mutual fund investments were all affected.
The gap between the two figures reflects the difference between the losses formally listed in the complaint so far and the wider estimates circulating among affected customers, many of whom are still coming forward.
Shrichand, a resident of Surajpur in Greater Noida, alleged that 1.16 crore rupees was misappropriated from his fixed deposit. His complaint became the trigger for the FIR, which was lodged on Wednesday after he reported that the money linked to his account at the bank's Aichhar branch had been embezzled. Other customers have since described similar experiences.
Bijendra Singh claimed that his savings account balance had fallen from around 87 to 88 lakh rupees to just one lakh rupees. Haneep Khan alleged a loss of nearly 39 lakh rupees, while Zakir claimed that 9.5 lakh rupees had disappeared without any transaction alert.
The investigation has taken a significant turn with the discovery of where some of the money went. Police have found that money allegedly diverted from customers' accounts at the Greater Noida branch reached six bank accounts in Goa, Mumbai and Jharkhand, and those accounts have been frozen.
Investigators said the money did not stay in those accounts and was routed onwards to others, a pattern that suggests an organised laundering chain rather than isolated unauthorised withdrawals. Investigators suspect that branch employees and the bank manager may have come into contact with a cyberfraud gang and allegedly facilitated the irregularities.
So far, 30 account holders from Aichhar, Birondi, Bironda, Kyampur and several other neighbouring villages have submitted complaints at the Beta-2 police station. The station house officer said 12 fresh complaints were filed on Thursday alone, and all complaints are being clubbed into the FIR filed earlier.
Several complainants have also alleged that gold and silver jewellery and other valuables went missing from their lockers, with some claiming the originals were replaced with imitation jewellery, a charge that, if substantiated, would widen the scope of the case considerably.
The bank has moved to contain the fallout. On Wednesday, PNB suspended the branch manager and four other employees. The bank's zonal manager, Rajesh Bhowmik, said a case had been registered with the Central Bureau of Investigation, and that the bank would examine each account holder's case individually before refunding the amounts.
In a public statement issued on Thursday, PNB said three claims amounting to 43 lakh rupees had been settled as of the previous day, and it reiterated its zero-tolerance policy towards fraud, financial irregularities and misconduct.
"The Bank assures its customers that all genuine claims will be honoured," PNB said in its statement, adding that the matter was being examined on priority, that it was extending full cooperation to the authorities concerned, and that stern action would be taken against those found responsible in accordance with applicable rules and procedures.
Gautam Buddh Nagar Lead District Manager Ram Vinod Kumar told the Press Trust of India that action was being taken and that the grievances of account holders were being examined.
The episode has raised uncomfortable questions about internal controls at the branch. Customers have described how they began checking their account balances only after the bank allegedly sent messages and made calls asking them to provide four to five days' advance notice if they intended to withdraw more than one lakh rupees, a request that struck many as unusual and prompted them to verify their savings.
For several, that check revealed the shortfalls that are now the subject of the investigation.
The case also highlights the vulnerability of customers in semi-urban and rural branches, where account holders may be less likely to monitor their accounts through mobile banking or to receive instant transaction alerts. Several complainants said they received no alerts about the debits from their accounts, a claim that investigators will need to test against the bank's transaction records and messaging logs.
If alerts were suppressed or diverted, that would point to insider involvement, which is already the working hypothesis of the police.
For PNB, one of India's largest public sector banks, the reputational stakes are high. Public sector banks depend heavily on the trust of small depositors, particularly in towns and villages where banking relationships are personal and long-standing. A fraud of this alleged scale at a single branch, involving savings built up over years, including land acquisition compensation in at least one case, strikes at that trust directly.
One complainant alleged that 1.3 crore rupees had been deposited in her account as land compensation, of which 1.2 crore rupees had allegedly gone missing.
The settlement of the first three claims, totalling 43 lakh rupees, is a small sum against the alleged total, but it is symbolically important: it signals that the bank accepts that at least some of the claims are genuine and is prepared to pay. The pace at which the remaining claims are verified and settled will now be closely watched by the affected customers, many of whom have spent their working lives accumulating the savings at the centre of the dispute.
As the investigation continues, with frozen accounts to be traced, the money trail to be followed through its onward routing, and the locker allegations to be examined, the immediate priority for customers is the recovery of their funds. For the banking system more broadly, the case is a reminder that internal controls, transaction alerts and audit trails are not administrative formalities but the safeguards on which depositors' life savings depend.
(Reporting based on NDTV and The Hindu BusinessLine.)