So how many ’stamp papers’ did the bank really sell?

SBM gives wildly contradictory figures on how many sheets it printed and sold, and how much money it has remitted to the government so far from the sale of 'document sheets' from early 2003

So how many 'stamp papers' did the bank really sell?

SBM gives wildly contradictory figures on how many sheets it printed and sold, and how much money it has remitted to the government so far from the sale of 'document sheets' from early 2003

STATE Bank of Mysore has got its 'document sheet' figures all wrong, raising serious suspicions about what it's been up to.

The government pays the bank 1 per cent as commission on stamp duty collected. Data provided by the bank in reponse to an RTI query puts the total commission due to the bank up to March 31, 2009, as Rs 5,24,07,727, out of which it claims only Rs 1,63,29,421 has been paid.

This means the bank must have remitted Rs 524.07 crore to the treasury as stamp duty collection, but a separate RTI query reveals that the bank has remitted only about Rs 376.53 crore.

The discrepancy then, according to SBM's own figures, is a staggering Rs 147.5 crore of stamp duty money due to the state government.

Interestingly, when this reporter filed an RTI with the state treasury regarding the amount remitted by SBM as stamp duty collection, they responded saying they had no such information.

This paper had earlier reported how the bank printed and sold substitute stamp papers, called 'document sheets', ignoring warnings by the Lokayukta, the revenue secretary and the Inspector General of Registration & Commissioner of Stamps (IGR & CS) that what it was doing was irregular.

It had also violated norms on several counts, including printing stamp papers at private presses, giving contradictory data about quantity of stamp papers printed, and failing to maintain accounts of either printing or the sales.

Printing chaos

Equally alarming is the discrepancy in the number of document sheets printed by the bank, after it was informally entrusted with the job by the state government following the Telgi scam in 2003.

Data concerning the total number of sheets printed from 1st April 2003 to March 31st 2006, submitted by the bank on three different occasions, vary wildly.

The figure submitted by the bank to the then revenue secretary Latha Krishna Rao is 3,14,79,000, to the IGR & CS it is 3,11,64,000, and to this reporter in response to an RTI query, it is 3,07,51,000.

The maximum discrepancy in the number of sheets is 7,28,000 sheets, which could mean a discrepancy in stamp duty amounts of up to Rs 36.5 crore.

More questions

RTI petitions have also revealed that the bank keeps no accounts of even the most basic kind when it concerns its document sheet business.

In response to an RTI query about details of the document sheets printed and sold by the bank, shockingly, the bank responded that it did not keep records as "the doc sheets did not have pre-printed denominations until 31-03-2007". This when samples with MiD DAY clearly show that the bank was issuing document sheets with pre-printed denominations from as early as 2004.

Govt complicity?

As if the SBM's own role in the document sheet business were not suspect enough, the government's own is hardly better.

On May 7, 2007, at a time when the bank had been printing and selling stamp papers for nearly four years without any written authorisation, the IGR & CS issued an letter instructing SBM to print document sheets because there was a "shortage".

Sources reveal that the letter, the first one to make the whole business official and which claimed to have 'retrospective effect', was issued after the Lokayukta objected to the bank's printing and selling of document sheets by a bank, which the rules don't allow for.

But what the officials failed to note was that when they were claiming a "shortage" of stamp papers, SBM had a surplus of nearly 1.5 crore sheets, nearly two years worth of stock, as it sold only 70 lakh sheets a year on average.

The investigation by this reporter, which lasted months and painstakingly pursued the paper trail, has revealed dozens of such irregularities, minor and major.

The revelations call for a thorough enquiry into the SBM's document sheet business and the role of bank and government officials in allowing it to continue.