Chandigarh, June 3
Unaccounted-for-cash, or the black money, can be kept safely in a bank. To be precise, this money can be safely stashed away in a bank locker, or the new age storage having vaults.
And it is not only cash, but even bullets and plastic explosives (RDX), drugs, or unaccounted for gold, are also being stored in bank lockers and vaults. Not only are these safe options for storage from the prying eyes of the government agencies, but one can use them as many times during the day.
Despite increasing instances of huge sums of cash being recovered by investigating agencies from the lockers of rich and powerful, including the incidence of recovery of Rs 30.50 lakh from the locker of Mr Ashish Vajpayee (official liquidator of the Punjab and Haryana High Court) in Chandigarh on Wednesday, the banks plead that they are unarmed against this misuse of lockers. A few years ago, Rs 8.16 crore in cash was also found stacked in bank lockers of a former Chairman of Punjab Public Service Commission. There have been instances when RDX and bullets were seized from a bank locker in Mumbai and in Jammu and Kashmir.
A top official in Punjab and Sind Bank, Punjab Circle, said that the relation between the bank and the lessee of the locker was that of a tenant and landlord. “We just sign an agreement with the lessee and he is allowed use of the locker, as and when he wants.
We have no key to check the locker, only a supplementary key to the key in with the customer. A customer can keep whatever he wants in the locker, after he pays the annual charges, which vary from Rs 500 to Rs 8,000,” he said. The lockers and vaults available in banks and private storage vary from 1,000 cubic inches to 5,000 cubic inches in size.
Inquiries made with various banks revealed that other than seeking an advance of the rent for three years, or getting fixed deposits from customers, so that the interest was used as annual rent, the banks did not require much from a customer to rent out a locker. “There are no guidelines issued by Reserve Bank of India on screening of the lessees for bank lockers,” maintained a top official of Punjab National Bank, Haryana Circle.
Bank managers also reveal that generally the large and very large size of lockers are used for stacking away these “illegal wares”. A bank manager posted in Kalka said that a number of large lockers, rented out in banks, have not been by the lessees for years together. “Not only are the banks unsure of what lies stored in them, but they are also losing out on the rent,” he said.
