It is certain that experts are making these fake notes which are difficult to identify, except by the trained eye.
Sherwin Pinto, an engineer working in a Public Sector Organisation (PSO), is a bitter man these days. About a month ago, he withdrew about Rs 8,000 from an ATM in Mumbai and went across to another nationalised bank across the road to deposit the same against another transaction he had made earlier. However, the teller at the counter told him that one of the Rs 500 notes he had just received from the ATM was a fake.
Sherwin raised the matter with the bank which had dispensed the note to him from the ATM, only to be told that they could not help him. They asked him some questions like, Could he prove that this note was dispensed by the machine? Was it possible that this note came from some other source and got mixed with the notes drawn from the ATM? When he approached the Banking Ombudsman, he was told that disputes of this nature did not come within the rules framed under the Banking Ombudsman Act and they had no jurisdiction to handle this matter.
Now, what is one to do when one receives a fake note? Most consumers would try to palm it off to some other unwary person. However, intentionally passing on a fake currency note is a cognisable offence in law which could lead to a prison term.
The law mandates that the note should either have been confiscated or defaced to prevent it from getting into further circulation, but a sympathetic teller returned the note to him stating that it was a fake.
If the bankers accept a currency note which is a fake, the organisation returns it back to the cashier and deducts the amount of the note from his salary.
It is certain that experts are making these fake notes which are difficult to identify, except by the trained eye. For the consumer and the government this is turning out to be a big headache. As was done in the Telgi stamp paper case, is it time to announce a general amnesty on return of these fake notes, for the government to accept and reimburse the consumer the amounts due on them and issue fresh notes with better security features in check?
Or will the fake notes continue to be palmed off knowing or unknowingly by people like Sherwin who unwittingly get them?
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