From Beauty Parlour to Big Scam: Cash withdrawn from Dormant Account in SBI Mumbai

A surprising case involving a dormant bank account at SBI has triggered an investigation. The issue surfaced when the Income Tax Department seized ₹10 lakh from a passenger, Roshan Kumar, at Darbhanga Airport. He could not clearly explain the source of the cash, prompting authorities to trace the funds. The money was found to have originated from an old, inactive account belonging to a beauty parlour at SBI’s Mira Industrial Estate branch in Mumbai.

A bank account gets dormant if it’s not operated for two years. Dormant means you cannot withdraw money from your account until you visit your branch and update your KYC. If the account is not operated for 10 years, then the account is transferred to DEAF.

Initial checks showed that the dormant account’s KYC had been updated recently using Roshan Kumar’s details. This has raised questions: How was the account activated with the wrong KYC? This has also raised suspicion that a bank employee might be involved. However, investigators are considering all the possibilities – this fraud might have been done by the customer, or some bank employee might have done this by mistake due to extreme work pressure.

Bank insiders say that managers regularly deal with tight deadlines, customer rush, compliance requirements, and system updates. In such an environment, a clerical mix-up or mistaken identity during dormant account reactivation cannot be ruled out. But the customer who withdrew the cash did it with complete intention. How can a person withdraw cash from the account of another person?

The investigation is ongoing, and authorities are examining system logs, documents, and communication trails to determine whether the transaction resulted from a procedural lapse, confusion during KYC verification, or a simple administrative error.

SBI management has been notified, and the case may be forwarded to the CBI for a detailed investigation.