Since the government’s decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes on November 8, there have been several reports of huge quantities of the demonetised currency being seized across the country. A big part of the seizures have come from police raids. In Delhi, several of those raids have landed the policemen involved in trouble. At least 12 policemen in four separate cases have faced action for allegedly keeping a part or the entire amount of cash seized.
The first such case came just four days after the demonetisation announcement. On November 12, a garbage collector found a sack full of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, amounting to around Rs 26.3 lakhs, at a garbage disposal site in Pitampura in Northwest Delhi. He took the cash home and three days later, disclosed this to a woman in his neighbourhood. The neighbour reported the matter to the police, who allegedly promised her a handsome reward – 10% of the amount – for the information.
On the night of November 15, a police team, led by the station house officer of the Jahangirpuri Police Station, raided the garbage collector’s shanty, recovered the cash and took him away. However, they made no record of the seizure. Days later, the matter came to the notice of their seniors after the neighbour raised a hue and cry on not receiving her promised reward. The garbage collector, too, was nowhere to be found, with no one in the locality having seen him since November 18.
A week later, the police traced him to his native village in West Bengal and brought him back to Delhi. During interrogation, he revealed that the raiding policemen had paid him Rs 1.3 lakhs for his silence and instructed him to leave the city immediately.
“Action has been taken against the station house officer and three of his juniors,” a senior police officer, who did not want to be identified, said. “An FIR has been registered. The station house officer, who is believed to have led the team, can face arrest. Probe is underway.”
Crime in khaki
The second such case came a fortnight later. Police in the Outer Delhi district received information about a person in possession of a large sum of old notes and raided his house, seizing Rs 30 lakhs in the process. They allegedly threatened him into silence. Unlike their counterparts in the Pitampura case, they decided to keep one-third of the amount and entered the remaining sum in the record books. But this incident, too, came to light a day later with a colleague reporting the matter to a senior.
“A departmental inquiry has been initiated against the four officers of the Outer District Special Staff,” another senior Delhi Police officer said.
The third case involved the traffic police. On November 22, a traffic constable stopped a driver to check his licence and noticed a packet of cash in the car’s rear seat. He called two of his colleagues standing nearby. The driver, a West Delhi-based businessman, claimed the money – mostly old Rs 500 notes – was for his nephew’s wedding. The traffic policemen threatened to take it all away, claiming that possession of such a big quantity of old notes was illegal. They eventually settled the matter for Rs 1.2 lakhs.
However, the businessman reported the matter to the police the same day. A departmental enquiry was initiated and the three traffic officials have been dismissed from service, a senior official said.
In yet another case, a sub-inspector posted at a police station in the Delhi Police’s East District was arrested on November 26 along with three civilians in a cheating case related to the exchange of old notes. A textile merchant from Bihar, who had come to the city with Rs 18 lakhs in high-denomination notes before the demonetisation announcement, was introduced to the three men by a relative. The three offered to help him get the money exchanged for a commission. However, the businessman never got his money back and approached the police.
A case was registered and the three men caught. However, they told the police that the sub-inspector had intercepted them and taken away the money.
Raids illegal?
Apart from these cases, the police raids – in Delhi, where over Rs 6 crores has been seized so far, and across India – have raised questions of legality. For, while the government action may have rendered the old notes worthless pieces of paper, the law does not make their possession or transport a criminal offence.
Justifying the seizures, however, senior Delhi Police officials cited provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Section 103 of the Delhi Police Act, which deals with possession of property of which no satisfactory account can be given. They claimed that under these provisions, they had the power to interrogate people in possession of big amounts of demonetised notes while in transit.
Special Police Commissioner (Crime Branch) Taj Hassan said the people in possession of such large quantities of demonetised notes were not arrested but only interrogated under the law, before the case was handed over to the income tax department.