One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.
Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.
TL;DR: Money taken out of an account by a bank's own employee is bank employee fraud, a criminal offence, not just an internal staffing problem. The bank is expected to report the fraud to the RBI and to lodge a police complaint, but it usually owes the customer no explanation about that reporting. So the pressure has to come from a proper police complaint, the RBI's banking ombudsman, and where needed a writ petition in the High Court.
The gap showed up in a passbook. Rakesh Malhotra had banked at the same branch in Pune for years, and when his son-in-law Nikhil Malhotra, an NRI based in Dubai, sat down with the statements during a visit, the numbers would not reconcile. Over fifty lakh rupees had gone out. The relationship manager, according to the family, had used his position and his access to move the money. That was the start of 2024. What came after was worse than the loss itself.
Six months of emails, letters and escalations produced one line, repeated in different words each time: the bank's internal compliance team had done whatever was required. The manager was removed from service. He was not arrested. Nobody would say whether the fraud had been reported to the Reserve Bank of India or whether a police complaint existed at all. And here's the thing, the family did not even know what they were legally entitled to ask for.
By then Nikhil had approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao. The complaint was rebuilt from scratch, a written complaint to the bank's nodal officer, a complaint under Section 173 BNSS at the police station concerned, and a parallel representation under the RBI's integrated ombudsman framework. The bank furnished a written reply and a case came to be registered against the manager. Advocate Sudhir Rao's familiarity with how banks classify and report fraud made the difference; the earlier attempts, drafted as ordinary customer grievances, had gone nowhere.
Key Facts of the Case
- The account holder, Rakesh Malhotra of Pune, was an existing customer of a private sector bank; his son-in-law Nikhil Malhotra is an NRI.
- More than fifty lakh rupees left the account, allegedly through the relationship manager's misuse of his position and access.
- The bank reversed the amount, so the customer's monetary loss was made good, but the bank disclosed nothing about its statutory reporting.
- The employee was terminated from service but not arrested, and no criminal case was registered for six months.
- The family's repeated escalations to senior bank officials produced only the standard
Facing a similar matter? Speak to a Delhi criminal defence lawyer — Advocate Sudhir Rao appears in bail, trial and appellate matters before the Delhi District Courts, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India.