Nefarious Activities of I.S.I

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A Coin Note Examiner of Reserve Bank of India, blessed with a photographic memory was in the habit of examining serial numbers of currency notes passing through his hands. Sometime in the Sixties and it so happened that he came across two pieces of hundred-rupee notes bearing exactly the same details in all respects! And as is to be expected it caused a great furor! The two notes finally landed on the Chiefs table and his expert opinion was, Obviously one of them is fake! Of course such news hardly ever comes out in the media because bank officials are at personal-level fettered by the secrecy bond signed by them and the higher officials do not have the freedom to report such matters directly.
Last year Anti Terrorist Squad (Mumbai) seized 345 pieces of fake currency notes in the thousand-rupee-denomination in the series Nos: 2 AQ and 8 AC from 4 persons belonging to West Bengal and Jharkhand. Immediately following this Reserve Bank Of India advised all Public Sector/Private/Foreign Banks vide their circular No: DCM (FNVD) No. 8626 /16.20.20/2008-2009 Dt. 26.5.2009 not to accept thousand rupee notes in these series because duplicate notes in these series aggregating to Rs. 2000 crores are feared to have entered India. Obviously it is extremely difficult if not impossible to detect anything fake about these currency notes either in terms of feel or appearance.

Driven by curiosity in this regard cashier of a nationalized bank known to the writer was asked about this when pat came the reply, Such circulars keep coming Who has the bloody time to check serial numbers of those notes we receive in terms of thousands upon thousands that too during peak hours?

Most banks in the public sector have cash-chests of their own and therefore there is no question of withdrawing or lodging cash with RBI. And also almost all bank cash counters nowadays are provided with machines for counting of notes. This being the case to what extent RBI has succeeded in withdrawing those thousand-rupee currency notes is anybodys guess.

While on the subject one feels tempted to toy with a theory that may not be all that far fetched after all.

Credibility rating of the ISI being what it is, little wonder if the ISI has been engaged full time in duplicating our currency notes; there is no telling since how long. In all probability this has been one sure way of financing its endless nefarious activities all these years while our administration is blissfully unaware of it all.