The premises of the Edappally Service Cooperative Bank here on Thursday witnessed some chaotic scenes after the bank employees prevented income tax officials from collecting data of accounts maintained at the branch.
The incident happened around 10 a.m. when a four-member team from the IT Department went to the bank, seeking details of its depositors. As the bank employees refused to cooperate, the sleuths insisted on sharing the information, and the scene escalated into a tense stand-off, with some members of the bank’s administrative counsel and some CITU workers joining the bank officials.
The situation eased around 12 noon when the IT officials decided to return for the time being.
“They had come with a pen-drive, asking the bank staff to spare a computer and an employee for collecting details of depositors. The employees, however, resisted the move, citing relevant provisions of the IT Act,” Cooperative Employees Union Secretary M. Raju said.
According to Kalamassery Circle Inspector S. Jayakrishnam, a police team rushed to the spot on an alert, but it did not have to intervene in the matter. “Neither did we receive any complaints from the parties involved,” he said.
Meanwhile, the IT sleuths said the bank authorities had allowed them to collect the details after offering resistance initially. According to Benny John, Director of Income Tax (Investigation), a four-member IT team arrived at the bank to collect data as a matter of routine, and they were waylaid by bank officials and some CITU workers in the locality.
“There was resistance from cooperative societies on sharing such data earlier, following which we approached the court and obtained a favourable verdict. But the bank officials were, apparently, clueless about it. They summoned a crowd of unionists and created noisy scenes, but we did not want the situation to precipitate a crisis.
“Subsequently, a discussion was held with the bank secretary and the board of directors following which they cooperated with the data collection,” he said.
Mr. John said IT sleuths generally collected data pertaining to accounts that contained sums of over Rs.10 lakh and PAN details of the account holder, if available.
Data collection will be continue on Friday, he maintained.
