EC vigil on blackmoney flow, asks banks to scan transactions

In an effort to curb flow of black money in the run up to the assembly elections here, the Delhi Election Commission today directed banks to scan all transactions over Rs one lakh and keep an eye on suspicious money withdrawals and deposits.

Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev held a meeting with representatives of various lead banks, officials from Financial Intelligence Unit of Finance Ministry and Income Tax department to discuss ways to check flow of black money during the campaigning.

Election Commission officials said banks have been asked to submit daily reports to concerned district election officers on suspicious withdrawal of cash.

They said one nodal officer from banking sector has been appointed in each of the 11 districts to analyse suspicious transaction details.

As per the guidelines issued to the banks, any unusual transfer of money through RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) system during the election process without any precedent of such transfer will have to be reported.

Further, any deposit of cash or withdrawal of cash exceeding Rs one lakh from back account of candidates or spouse or dependents as mentioned in the affidavit filed by candidates, which is available with the Commission, should be reported.

The Deputy Election officers can scrutinise the details and if they find anything suspicious can approach the CEO who according will take action.

"The aim to create a system of monitoring bank transactions related to election expenditure to ensure that the expenditure during election is within the limit. The focus is on certain non-operational bank accounts which becomes suddenly active during election," Special Chief Electoral Officer Shurbir Singh said.

The upper limit for expenditure by each candidate will be Rs 14 lakh.

As per the provisions, each candidate will have to open a separate bank account for making transactions of receipt and payment for election purposes and details of such account will have to be submitted to returning officers at the time of nomination.

To keep a check on spendings, assistant expenditure observers will maintain a "shadow expenditure register" of each candidate for all the expense made by the candidates and the same shall be compared with expenditure register maintained by the candidates.