New Delhi / SBI mistakenly opens bank accounts of 2 men with same number

News Bytes : Nov 23, 2019, 10:03 AM
A man in Madhya Pradesh's Bhind district was pleasantly surprised when he saw a large sum of money mysteriously appear in his State Bank of India (SBI) account.

As the inexplicable cash inflow became a regular affair, the man, Hukum Singh, assumed it must be Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fulfilling an election promise.

However, the truth was more bizarre than what Singh conceived.

Modi hai to mumkin hai?

According to NDTV, Singh, who lives in Rony village, had been receiving money every month, much to his amusement.

Believing it to be PM Modi's work, Singh kept withdrawing the money as he needed it for his expenses.

Reportedly, Singh drew out Rs. 89,000 from his account over six months.

Meanwhile, another Hukum Singh in Haryana was perhaps lost!

Here's what had happened

You see, unbeknownst to each other, both Hukum Singhs held the same SBI account, thanks to an error by SBI's Alampur branch manager, Rajesh Sonkar.

Hukum Singh #2 (or just Hukum Singh as he calls himself) hails from Rurai village in Madhya Pradesh and opened an account in the same branch as Singh (from Rony village).

Singh#2 then moved to Haryana for work.

Issue came to light when Singh#2 found his money gone

Singh#2, hard at work, regularly deposited money into his account for savings, unaware that another person with the same name was assigned an identical account number by Sonkar.

When Singh#2 went to withdraw the money, he noticed his account balance was Rs. 35,400, a lakh short of the Rs. 1,40,000 he claimed the account should have had.

SBI acknowledged error; the solution remains elusive

When Singh#2 raised the issue with bank officials, they allegedly tried to suppress the matter.

Eventually, SBI Alampur branch officials acknowledged their mistake.

However, when the news was broken to Singh, he obviously wasn't pleased.

Singh believes SBI needs to be held accountable for creating this complicated situation, however, it remains unclear how the issue can be resolved.

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