Sikkim police raids residences, offices of senior State Bank officials in bribery case

The Sikkim Police raided the residences and offices of five senior offices of the State Bank of Sikkim, in and around Gangtok, Pakyong, Jorethang and Sombaria in connection with bribery, during which a significant number of incriminating documents were seized.

Upon receiving source inputs, the personnel of the vigilance department of Gangtok raided the area following which they registered First Information Reports (FIR) against five senior rank officials of the Sikkim bank.

The police made the arrests on the allegation that the officials had received a huge amount of bribe money from various customers of SBS by way of credit to their respective bank accounts, according to a press release. 

It was further stated that one of the accused bank officials received more than one crore as bribe from a number of customers of the bank. 

Meanwhile, the modus operandi adopted by the accused bank officials in demanding and accepting bribe was to ask the concerned customers to transfer the amount, to their respective banks from time to time.

Documents relating to acquisition of moveable and immoveable assets and cash in lakhs were also recovered during the raids.

The State Bank of Sikkim was established in 1969 by a proclamation from the Chogyal, the erstwhile king and operates independently of the Reserve Bank of India.

The raids are currently underway and further details are awaited.