More than 103 kilograms of gold worth Rs 45 crores has gone missing from the safe custody of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI).
This missing gold is part of the 400.5kg gold in bullion and ornaments that the central investigation agency had seized during a raid of the office Surana Corporation Ltd in Chennai in 2012.
The incident came to light on Friday when the Madras High Court ordered a probe by the crime branch of the Central Investigation Department (CB,CID) of Tamil Nadu.
CBI had kept the gold in the safes and vaults of Surana under its lock and seal and handed over the 72 keys of the safes and vaults to the Chennai principal special court for CBI cases.
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A report stated that the CBI claimed that the discrepancy occurred when the gold bars were weighed individually while being handed over to the liquidator.
The liquidator had been appointed to settle debts between the company and the State Bank of India.
CBI sleuths said that they had altogether weighed the gold bars when they had initially recovered them during the raid.
Nevertheless, Justice Prakash directed a CB-CID probe into the incident.
An officer in the SP rank is to conduct the probe within a duration of six months.