Brief Outline: Leading news websites – FirstPost, News18.com, Times Now and The New Indian Express took down a story which was written linking BJP President Amit Shah’s name to an Ahmedabad-based co-operative bank.

Facts Check: Yes articles were removed and some edited later to produce again.

What is Viral in India? 

Leading news websites – FirstPost, News18.com, Times Now and The New Indian Express took down a story which was written linking BJP President Amit Shah’s name to an Ahmedabad-based co-operative bank. The story said that the bank “netted the highest among such banks of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes” after demonetisation was announced on November 8, 2016.

As per the article on firstpost cached version:

A district cooperative bank, which has Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah as a director, netted the highest deposits among such banks of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were abruptly demonetised on 8 November, 2016, according to RTI replies received by a Mumbai activist.

Facts Check Analysis: We at Ayupp don’t have Authencity of the news. However the fact is that yes the news article was pulled down by several of this leading websites and what we have mostly now is the cached version of the website on Google and several other archiving websites which maintain website log history.

The article was given by IANS and published on 21^st June, 2018.

Archive 1: Cooperative bank with Amit Shah as a director collected highest amount of demonetised notes among DCCBs, finds RTI reply

The above article in the viral section was later edited and republished in economictimes, removing Amit Shah’s name from the content, the modified section read as title “Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank collected highest amount of banned notes among DCCBs: RTI reply”

A district cooperative bank, Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), netted the highest deposits among such banks of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were abruptly demonetised on November 8, 2016, according to RTI replies received by a Mumbai activist.

What the article by IANS and sent to this news websites wanted to state was that Amit Shah was the director of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB) and the bank secured deposits of Rs 745.59 crore of the spiked notes -- in just five days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the demonetisation announcement.  

The article published by IANS claims that Amit Shah as one of the director of the adcbank, we cross checked on the adcbank and found his name to be there.

As per the adcbank (archive here), the website claims that Amit shah is one of the Directors of the bank. The ABCD bank states that “Mr. Amit A Shah is Director of the Ahmedabad District Co-Operative Bank Ltd. He was also the Past Chairman of the Bank. He is actively associated with Village Level’s Primary Agriculture Co-op. Society, Progressive Farmer and Social Workers, Director – The Madhupura Mercantile Co-op. Bank Ltd. (Revival Committee), President of Bharatiya Janata Party. He is also a representative of Agricultural Multipurpose and Service Co-op Society.”

So the news was though published by the leading websites, however it was latter pulled down or edited.