Two former private bank employees have been arrested for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of reviving policy accounts that had become inactive due to non-payment of installments.
Police said the accused — Ravi Kumar and Vinish — used a 'magic pen' for the purpose. Besides cheating people, they have also been charged with stealing important data from the Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The incident came to light after one Mahabir Singh lodged a complaint in December, accusing the duo of cheating him. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Chhaya Sharma said, "The two were nabbed near IIPM College in South Delhi. The duo used to steal important data from Kotak Mahindra Bank, with which they were earlier employed, and cheat customers. After cheating over 50 people of more than Rs 15 lakh, they gambled the money away."
According to the complaint, Singh's Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Policy had closed due to non-payment of instalments. The duo allegedly approached Singh and convinced him to sign documents with a pen that contained disappearing ink.
Singh had handed over three three signed cheques — one for Rs 45,000, another for Rs 3,000 and the third cancelled — to the accused for account verification. The accused provided him with a photocopy of the same. "However, when Singh later checked his account balance, he found that the two cheques issued by him had been debited. He then approached the Fatehpur Beri police station.
A trap was laid to nab the accused, with the help of a decoy customer. During questioning the duo confessed that they had been "exploiting loopholes in the Kotak Mahindra Bank's banking system".
After making calls to defaulters, they would fix appointments with them. "Once they had filled the amount using the magic pen , they would make the victims sign the cheques with an actual pen. After that, they would write larger amounts and their own account numbers on the cheques," Sharma said.
Police recovered a cancelled cheque, 12 fake SIM cards, a counterfeit ID card of the Kotak Mahindra Bank, four cellphones, 15 sets of application forms and nine cheques from their possession.
Asset Class Views as under –
· Fixed Income – Time to play duration . Expect cumulative policy easing of ~100-150 bps by March 2013 as RBI expects to keep the repo rate above headline inflation (7%)
o RBI has clearly indicated over the last few months that the interest rate cycle has peaked and it's time to support growth. The growth rate estimates for FY 12 have been revised from 8% in Jan 11 to 7% in Dec 2011. Similarly for FY 13 the growth rate estimates have been revised to 6.5% much below the comfort zone of 7.5% - 8.0% of RBI
o Inflation has come down to the comfort zone of 7.0% - 8.0%. From the high of 10% seen in the month of Sep 2011 Inflation has come down to 7.47%.
o With slowdown in domestic consumption demand clearly demonstrated by lower import figures, lower inventory figures & decline in gross capital formation. We expect the inflation to continue its downward trajectory.
o The key risks to the above remain the fiscal policy of the government. Though the market is pricing in 5.5% fiscal deficit in 2012 it expects the fiscal deficit to come off in FY 13. Any indication to the contrary in the budget would reverse the falling yield scenario and yields could move back to 8.4% - 8.5% levels.
· Equities seemed to have bottomed out till we approach the Union Budget . Recent rally is nothing specific to India. This is happening across the globe from China, Turkey to Mexico in anticipation that a second round LTRO & possible QE3 could come in from the Fed.
o Liquidity is here to stay – ECB has injected $500 bn of liquidity into the system. Fed has also proposed to keep interest rates low till 2014
o Interest rate easing has started in India – The CRR cut by the RBI has signaled a start of easing monetary policy stance in India which could result in a cut of 150 bps – 250 bps over the next 12 – 18 months
o Results for the quarter have been in line with the consensus estimates and there hasn't been any downgrade to consensus estimates after 4 quarters
o Europe problems seem to have been temporarily resolved. The yield on Italy bonds 1 yr yield has moved from 2.62% to 2.14% ( peak of 8.45%)
· Still not the time to be overweight equities. Structural issues remain
o India has still not taken measures to address the supply side constraints plaguing the economy. Markets have moved in anticipation of reform and resolution of supply side issues post the assembly elections. Any negative surprise would result in markets giving away some of the gains seen in the last 1 month.
o The markets have more or less discounted a possible $100 billion Greece default. However, whether this would lead to a cascading effect is yet to be seen.
o Structural issues in Europe and US are still to be resolved. US is running $ 1 trillion deficit for the 4th year running. In Europe growth is unlikely to return with the austerity measures being proposed. Any reversal in easy liquidity conditions could have a big impact on the markets.
o With the interest rate cycle reversing , we expect consensus estimates for Sensex to move up to 1250 – 1275 range for FY 13. Our March 2013 target for Sensex at 16x P/ E would be 20,000 – 20, 500. On the downside we expect the Sensex to get strong support at 16,000 – 16,500 levels.
· Gold – Global liquidity to support prices. Increase allocation is advised
o Turning positive as continued injection of liquidity by Fed and ECB would support gold prices
o Rupee has appreciated significantly against the $ and we don't see a significant appreciation from the current levels. We would expect the rupee to give up some of the gains and see levels of 50 – 51 in the next 2 -3 months. This should support gold prices in rupees
With India still overwhelmingly dependent on foreign military hardware and software, the government is all set to clear a new set of guidelines for creation of joint ventures between defence PSUs and private companies as a step towards bolstering the domestic defence industrial base (DIB).
Defence ministry sources say the new policy on JVs will be taken up for approval by the Union Cabinet on Thursday, a few months after the government had put "on hold" the joint venture between defence shipyard Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL) and private shipyard Pipavav after receiving a barrage of complaints by other rival private shipyards.
"The new policy will boost private sector entrance in the defence arena. It is also needed since there over 40 offset contracts (with global armament firms who have bagged or about to clinch Indian defence deals) worth over Rs 50,000 crore being negotiated," said a source.
"Then, around $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project will itself have 50% offsets...the potential is huge," he added.
The announcement of the MDL-Pipavav JV had led to a lot of heartburn among other private shipyards like L&T and ABG, which had complained of arbitrary decision-making by MDL in selecting Pipavav.
With the Navy having 46 warships on order, and several more in the pipeline, private players are jostling with each other to grab both Indian as well as foreign warship-building contracts.
MDL is the largest among the four defence shipyards, with an order book of around Rs 1,00,000 crore, including the Rs 23,562 crore project for six Scorpene submarines and the Rs 41,007 crore one for seven guided-missile destroyers.
Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) and Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL) at Visakhapatnam also have large order books.
But the capacity of the four shipyards is limited, with a big demand-supply gap, which has prompted the government to go in for public-private partnerships to meet timelines for ship-building.
The government has also come out with a new Defence Production Policy to progressively reduce India's strategically-vulnerable dependence on foreign military imports by bolstering indigenous R&D and private sector participation in a major way.
The defence sector was opened up in 2001-02 to 100% private investment, with up to 26% FDI, but the results so far have not been very encouraging. The abysmal performance of DRDO, eight defence PSUs and 39 ordnance factories has meant India, which fancies itself as an emerging superpower, still imports over 70% of its military requirements.
