At SBI ATM In Delhi, Fake Rs 2,000 Notes By 'Children Bank of India'

New Delhi: A man who withdrew Rs 8,000 cash from an ATM in south Delhi was shocked to see, at a closer glance, that all four 2,000-rupee notes had been issued by the "Children Bank Of India". As Rohit Kumar played Spot The Difference, right there at the ATM of the government-run SBI or State Bank of India, at least nine more deviations emerged in the cleverly-produced fakes.

In place of the official mark, a little box said "Churan Lable (label)". The Reserve Bank of India was the "Entertainment Bank of India" and the note promised two thousand "coupens" instead of rupees to the "barer". Central government became "bachchon ki sarkar (children's government). The notes also had "PK" on them in place of the RBI stamp.

However, SBI, in a statement, has said the chances of fake notes from its ATM are very remote. "SBI has in place, at all its Currency Chests a very robust system for monitoring the quality of notes. All notes received by the Bank and to be dispensed by the Bank, either through its ATMs or its branches, are processed through the latest state-of-the-art 'Note Sorting Machines'... Thus, no fake note is likely to be dispensed through Bank's ATMs at any time," the statement said.

Arvind Kejriwal did not pass up the chance to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a trenchant tweet, saying, "A Prime Minister who can't even produce proper notes... can he run the country? The country has become a joke."

Mr Kumar, a customer care executive, withdrew the cash on February 6 evening at the Sangam Vihar ATM.

"He kept staring at the notes and then he called the police," said the ATM's security guard to NDTV. "I immediately called my boss and told him there are fake notes in the machine. He told me to shut it down."

The ATM has been out of service since then.

When a police officer arrived to investigate, he too received a fake note.

A case of cheating has been filed.

The last man to fill cash in the machine has been identified from CCTV footage.

"Till now, there have been no other complaints. Probably, only a few notes were changed. We have to identify at which point the real notes were exchanged," said an officer.

2000-rupee notes debuted after the government banned Rs 500 and 1,000 notes overnight in November. The new notes were said to be tamper-proof with several high security features.