Seek advice on accountability on an incident of a missing the locker Master key of a Nationalized Bank. In a Nationalized Bank Branch, the Officer handling the Locker department was on leave and a Senior Clerk on temporary Supervisory entrustment was engaged. The Master key of the lockers of the branch was officially in possession of an Officer, who uses to unofficially hand over the Master key in the morning and take back the same from the temporary Supervisor in the evening.
The temporary Supervisor was unaware whether such unofficial handing over to him as a temporary Supervisor is permissible and was carrying some doubt on its legality as keys were handed and taken back without any records. Eventually, he was catering the service to the locker operators and the entry registrar remained unsigned by the temporary Supervisor, in view of the doubt and risk involved in such irregular handling, in case some odd happening creeps up.
Unfortunately, an unexpected incident happened, a few days back. The temporary Supervisor reportedly returned back the Master key in the hand of the respective Officer, but the Officer in the evening claimed that he is not in possession of the Master key and do not remember, the incident of the temporary Supervisor’s handing back the Master key.
Under the above situation, the Bank has commenced investigation, as the incidence involves huge financial loss to the Bank for the process and expenses involved in changing of all the locker keys.
How far the temporary Supervisor is accountable under the given circumstances? The service record of the temporary Supervisor was very clean, is a well behaved person and a quite gentle to everyone. In case he is accountable, what should be his stand to protect himself?
Invite kind advice.
Sibsankar Datta
