In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples through the Indian banking sector, ICICI Bank finds itself at the center of not just a massive financial scam, but a deeper institutional failure that goes beyond customer fraud and cuts into the very lives of its employees. A ₹4.58 crore fixed deposit fraud carried out over two years by a relationship manager is just the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is a systemic pattern of corruption, concealment, and exploitation—one that’s devastating both customers and employees alike.
Sakshi Gupta, a relationship manager at the ICICI Bank Kota DCM branch, has been identified as the key perpetrator behind the ₹4.58 crore fraud. She allegedly manipulated over 110 fixed deposit accounts, looting funds from 41 unsuspecting customers. This wasn’t a one-off act—it spanned two full years, during which ICICI Bank’s internal systems failed entirely to flag or detect the irregularities. In any credible institution, this would raise alarms and trigger accountability. At ICICI, it was business as usual.
The bank’s internal audit mechanisms proved useless. Despite repeated transactions and fund diversions, no red flags were raised. Their fraud detection systems—if functioning at all—failed to identify this extensive breach. Worse still, ICICI allowed one employee unchecked access to large sums across multiple accounts with no monitoring or supervisory oversight. This isn't a small gap—it’s a monumental collapse in governance and technology. If a scam of this magnitude can go unnoticed in a high-stakes department like fixed deposits, one must ask: how many other frauds are lying buried, undiscovered?
But the rot doesn’t end with customer money. It goes deeper, into how ICICI Bank has treated its own employees—a scandal that reflects not only a disregard for legal frameworks, but a horrifying display of corporate cruelty. Over the last few years, thousands of employees—ranging from Chief Managers and AGMs to Probationary Officers—have been illegally terminated by ICICI Bank. These were not resignations, nor lawful retrenchments. These were cold, calculated purges.
Employees were forced out without a single show-cause notice, no explanation, no inquiry. No termination letters were issued. Instead, the bank simply disabled their system access and manipulated internal records to show these exits as “voluntary abandonment.” Behind these digital cover-ups were real people—individuals with families, dreams, and loans—discarded like data points.
These mass terminations were not only unethical; they were blatantly illegal. They violated several Indian laws, including the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Shops & Establishment Acts, and even provisions of the Companies Act, 2013. Regulatory compliance norms set by the RBI and disclosure obligations under SEBI's LODR regulations were outright ignored. Despite the sheer scale—over 780 documented cases—there was no public disclosure, no media outcry, and no intervention from governing bodies.
This isn’t just bad HR practice. This is a scam in disguise—a scam against labour laws, against transparency, and against the Indian people. It mirrors the same mindset that allowed ₹4.58 crore to vanish unnoticed. Whether it’s customer money or employee rights, ICICI Bank seems to operate under a code of silence, cover-ups, and systemic evasion. The financial fraud in Kota and the mass terminations are two sides of the same coin—both pointing to a culture that puts reputation above ethics, and profit above people.
Families have been destroyed. Employees have spiraled into depression. Suicides have been reported. And yet, ICICI Bank maintains its polished PR front, bolstered by elite lobbying and silence from those in power. What’s unfolding is not just corporate mismanagement—it is exploitation on a national scale.
This is a call for justice, not just for the 41 customers affected by the fixed deposit scam, but for every employee wrongfully terminated, every voice silenced, every career erased. We demand immediate intervention by the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the Ministry of Labour and Employment, and the National Human Rights Commission. The time for silence has passed. It’s time for accountability.
If this can happen in India’s second-largest private sector bank, it can happen anywhere. ICICI Bank’s scam culture must be dismantled—before more lives, more money, and more trust is lost forever.