FINAL ORDER

27.03.2025

Dictated by :Rajesh Malhotra Present Appeal u/s 26 of the Prevention of the Money-Laundering Act, 2002 is filed by the Appellant, Shri Edward Samson Luke, General Manager of Mahamedha Urban Co-operative Bank, Ghaziabad Uttar Pradesh against the impugned order no. 3/DIR/FIU-IND/2016 dated 08.04.2016 (received on 26.04.2016) passed by Director FIU India, whereby, fine of Rs. 97 lakh was imposed on the Appellant Bank’s for failure to comply with the obligations under Rule 7(3) of the PML Rules, laid down under the PMLA, during the 85 months’ period from March 2006 to April 2013, calculated @ Rs. 1 lakh for each month of failure.

2. As per the facts of the case, an onsite review of the Bank was conducted by the FIU-IND on 03.09.2013, which revealed as under:

(1) The Bank did not file any Cash Transaction Report (hereinafter, ‘CTR’) for 40 months over the period from March 2006 to March 2013 and January 2013 to April 2013.

(2) The Bank delayed in filing the CTR for 11 months, i.e.; for the period from May 2013 to March 2014.

(3) The Bank also failed to establish any internal mechanism to detect and report such transaction.

Accordingly, a Show Cause Notice dated 08.09.201