Mumbai Police payroll fraud: ₹6.41 crore disbursed to 10 'ghost' employees, 5 booked
A payroll fraud has come to light in the Mumbai Police force, with officials uncovering that ₹6.41-crore were paid as salaries to 10 ‘ghost’ employees
A payroll fraud has come to light in the Mumbai Police force, with officials uncovering that ₹6.41-crore were paid as salaries to 10 ‘ghost’ employees between 2019 and 2020, news agency PTI reported. The fraud was detected during the transfer of payroll records, in which it was found that 10 non-police personnel were repeatedly shown as employees in the North Regional Division and received monthly salaries in bank accounts opened in their names, officials said, adding that a case has been registered against five staffers of the department in this connection.
Also Read | Mohan Bhagwat to interact with Gen Z, Gen Alpha students in Mumbai on August 6 The unauthorised salary transactions were primarily carried out during two periods - December 2019 to February 2020 and June to September 2020, the news agency report said. The ministerial-level clerical staff allegedly fabricated attendance registers and other official records to create ghost employees and include outsiders on the department's payroll, police said. Fictitious names in police payroll The fictitious names listed in the First Information Report (FIR) are Ramdas Bhogle, Sudhakar Kadam, Sarju Yadav, Bhagwat Bhosale, Gunaji Khavkar, Mahadev Haldankar, Rajendra Sonar, Uttam Thorat, Suryakant Patil and Pandurang Kadam, they said.
A case has been registered against five officials, who were posted at the time of the alleged fraud. Those named in the FIR are former administrative officers Ramkishan Goswami, Nagesh Talvadekar and Vijaya Chavan, Head Clerk Ajay Rathod, and Senior Clerk Amol Meshram. They have been booked under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) pertaining to cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. The Mumbai Police have suspended Chavan and Meshram, alleging that they created fake Service IDs and Defined Contribution Pension Scheme (DCPS) IDs to facilitate payment of salaries to the 10 fictitious employees.
As part of the suspension conditions, the duo has been barred from taking up private employment or business, directed to submit periodic declarations for subsistence allowance and prohibited from leaving the Brihanmumbai jurisdiction without prior permission. Police are now investigating the identities of the 10 purported employees and attempting to establish who operated the bank accounts into which the salaries were credited, further investigation is underway, official added.
The BriefWire