Man puts Rs 100 crore cheque in Simhachalam temple hundi, has Rs 17 in bank

Visakhapatnam: In a shocking incident, the temple authorities of Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Vari Devasthanam in Simhachalam, Visakhapatnam, received a cheque of Rs 100 crore. But, as it turned out, the cheque might be useless.

According to the temple officials, a cheque of Rs 100 crore was deposited by a devotee in one of the temple hundis. The temple staff noticed the Rs 100 crore cheque with the number 530485009 during the counting of hundi collections on Wednesday. The temple staff then immediately informed the temple executive officer (EO) Trinadh Rao about the cheque.

“The bank details on the cheque said it belonged to a Kotak Mahindra Bank branch on MVP Double Road in Visakhapatnam. On Thursday morning, we contacted the bank and found that the account holder of the cheque, identified as Bodepalli Radha Krishna, had only Rs 17 in his account,” said a temple official speaking to NewsMeter.

“The bank officials are trying to get the address of the cheque-holder. Once we get his details, we will register a cheque bounce case against the devotee depending on his reason for this incident,” said an official of Simhachalam.

When asked if they had similar incidents in the past, the official said, “We regularly get fake cheques but never of this amount. In this case, the devotee seems to have written Rs 10, crossed it and then added zeros. Many devotees drop old cheques, old notes, and torn notes thinking that the temple can exchange anything."

"We sometimes get Rs 500 notes too," he added.