The Chief Manager of a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in Gadpadi Gandhi Nagar, Vellore district filed a complaint against Yogeswara Pandian, who works as an assistant manager in the education loan department of the same branch, for swindling the education loan insurance amount of over Rs 34 lakh and utilising it to play online rummy.
The District Crime Branch police have arrested Pandian and are interrogating him based on the complaint. The police have confirmed that Pandian has defrauded the bank by Rs 34,10,622, as reported by Asianet News.
The amount that was stolen and utilized to play online rummy has not been recovered yet. The case is under investigation by the police department.
Recently, a similar case occurred in Karnataka, where a deputy manager of the Haveri branch of ICICI Bank siphoned off more than Rs 2 crore in order to play online rummy. Viresh Salimathan, the culprit in this case, started transferring money to his friend’s account from August 2022 to February 2023 and used it for playing online rummy. The police took action swiftly by arresting him and started further investigations.
The Tamil Nadu government has recently made a number of attempts to outlaw online gambling including online rummy, since it has been linked to a number of debt-related suicides. While the bill banning online rummy and other games was passed in the Assembly and sent to the Governor for his assent around five months ago it recently was returned by him for reconsideration.
The move has attracted widespread criticism for the Governor, with many people terming it as wrong. The cabinet, however, has decided to pass the bill in the legislative assembly once again and send it back to the Governor for his assent.
