PUNE: A man was booked on Tuesday for getting a credit card by using documents of a top officer of a US-based bank and spending Rs 4.51 lakh between November 2017 and May this year.Haricharan Sadanand Maneti (41) from Magarpatta lodged a complaint against the fraudster with the Hadapsar police on Tuesday.In November 2017, three-to-four men approached Maneti at a shop in a mall on Magarpatta Road and explained the benefits of subscribing to a credit card, the complainant said in the FIR. As the men claimed that they were from State Bank of India (SBI), Maneti decided to subscribe to the card.He shared with them the soft copies of his Aaadhar and PAN cards and photographs through a messaging application to complete the necessary formalities and fill the form. Maneti could not attend the verification call from the bank and his request for the card was turned down.“In May, 2018, he received a telephone call from a bank official. He was asked to clear his outstanding dues of over Rs4.51 lakh. He told the caller that the question of clearing the dues did not arise as he never received a card. The officer then asked him to visit the SBI’s Bundgarden Road branch for settling the matter,” the FIR stated.The bank manager in-charge of credit cards then met Maneti and apprised him of the facts. “An inquiry established that the fraudster misused the documents for obtaining a card in his name. However, Maneti had provided a fictitious address while filling the application,” the FIR stated.Maneti told TOI, “I shifted from Mumbai to Pune and applied for a card in November 2017. But I did not receive the card. The incident came to light after I received a phone call from the bank. I was later notified that the bank had issued the card to the fraudster.”On the delay in registering FIR, Hadapsar police assistant inspector Amol Kale said, “Maneti had instantly filed a complaint at the city police’s cybercrime cell on realizing that his documents had been misused. The cell conducted a preliminary inquiry and prima facie probe found substance in his complaint. It referred the application to us for further action. We have booked the fraudster under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code .”The bank has suffered financial loss, but has not taken the call to register a complaint against the fraudster as of now. An email sent to the bank remained unanswered till the time of going to press.

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