PUNE: In a first, Income Tax officials searched a bank branch and made the single biggest seizure of new notes in the country post demonetisation , recovering a huge stash of unaccounted cash in Rs 2,000 and Rs 100 banknotes on Wednesday from multiple lockers held by an American oilfield equipment supplier at the state-owned Bank of Maharashtra's Parvati branch.The counting of cash began on Wednesday afternoon. Officials had sealed the company's 15 bank lockers at the branch on Tuesday night. Till Wednesday evening, officials had unearthed Rs 10 crore and the counting was expected to continue till Thursday morning."We found through CCTV footage that these lockers were being operated very frequently by individuals, which made us suspicious. On investigation, we found that all 15 lockers belonged to a single company," a senior I-T official said.The official said one of the company's many offices is in Pune and that this was also being searched. "We are ruling out the connivance of bank officials at this stage.The total cash recovery could be more than Rs 10 crore. It is the single biggest seizure of new notes so far," he said.A bank spokesperson confirmed the searches but said they were waiting for clear details of the exact amount recovered. "The company is an old current account customer of the bank. BoM has no role in this whatsoever," he said. TOI has withheld the name of the company pending the outcome of the raid and an official announcement to this effect.The bank spokesperson said the company was allowed to withdraw Rs 50,000 only twice from its current account since November 10, as per rules laid down by the government. He ruled out anything irregular about a single company having 15 lockers in the same bank branch."It is a general practice for big companies to have multiple lockers. This is not something unusual. One just has to pay the specified amount to get a locker," he added. Given the high demand for lockers, banks usually insist on customers making a high fixed deposit or buying insurance products before they are granted lockers.