Shiv Prasad Nishad, a laborer from Basti district in Uttar Pradesh, recently received a surprising windfall of ₹221 crore in his bank account. Interestingly, he became aware of this substantial sum only after receiving an income tax (I-T) notice, which informed him of the significant inflow into his bank account.
Nishad explained that he had lost his PAN card in 2019, and it appears that someone may have misused it to open an account in his name and subsequently deposited funds into it. While this is a rare occurrence, there have been a few similar cases where individuals from rural areas unexpectedly received substantial sums.
In a similar incident, Dnyaneshwar Janardhan Awate, a small farmer from Aurangabad district’s Paithan Taluka, received ₹15 lakh in February of the previous year. He believed this sum was a gift from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He thought it might be the same ₹15 lakh that had been promised by PM Modi, according to opposition parties, to each citizen of the country once black money was repatriated from overseas accounts. In reality, this was a mistake where his bank account was inadvertently selected for the transfer of funds allocated to the Pimpalwadi gram panchayat under the 15th Finance Commission. He was subsequently asked to return the money that he had used for constructing his village house.
In another case, a 30-year-old tutor, Ranjeet Das, from Bihar’s Bakhtiyar village, allegedly received ₹5.5 lakh in his account due to a bank error in 2021. He initially refused to return the money despite receiving several notices. He, too, believed the money was sent by PM Narendra Modi as the first installment of the total ₹15 lakh he had promised to every individual during an election campaign in Bihar, according to police reports.
In another bizarre case of mistaken identity, two boys from Bihar’s Pastiya village, Guruchandra Vishwas and Asit Kumar, discovered that their bank accounts were credited with a total of ₹960 crore. Vishwas’s account received ₹60 crore, while Kumar’s account was credited with ₹900 crore. The boys held accounts at the Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank. An investigation was initiated to determine how the funds were deposited, and the branch manager ordered a halt to any further withdrawals.
Likewise, Bihari Lal, a laborer from Kannauj, was taken aback when he found that his Jan Dhan account had a total balance of ₹2,700 crore in August 2022, while attempting to withdraw ₹100. However, his joy was short-lived, as when he visited the branch to verify his balance, he was informed that the actual balance in his account was just ₹126.
