4 MEA employees lose Rs 92 lakh to fraud

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Jul 13 2018 DHNS: At least four employees in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) became victims of an economic fraud to the tune of Rs 91.90 lakh when unidentified officials "tampered" with the e-system dealing with their General Provident Fund accounts.

A month after the fraud was detected, the CBI has now registered a case against unknown officials in the MEA under Section 66 of Information Technology and relevant sections of Indian Penal Code, including criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery.

Officials suspect that the victims may be more than the four persons mentioned in the complaint.

According to the complaint filed by Controller of Accounts in the MEA, which forms part of the FIR, Rs 92 lakh belonging to four employees were fraudulently withdrawn from various GPF accounts during August 2017 and February 2018. This came  to light during a preliminary review conducted by the office of Principal Chief Controller of Accounts in the MEA.


The FIR said the fraud was detected on June 7 when an attempt was made to withdraw Rs 22 lakh from a fifth account belonging to one Ram Kumar. The money was to be deposited in one Satnam Singh’s account.

"Due to the mismatch of the name in the GPF account holder, the payment of the bill was stopped through the bank. During internal review, it is revealed that COMPACT Data Base (software in which office of Principal Chief Controller Accounts operates Ministry’s accounts) had been tampered with and certain data fields altered in order to facilitate the fraudulent withdrawal," it said.


The signatures of concerned sanctioning authorities were forged and wrong file numbers and details were made on the fraudulent GPF withdrawal documents.

"Enquiry form the concerned bank has revealed that the bank accounts, through which the fraudulent amount has been withdrawn, belong to some other individual and not the GPF beneficiary. It is also suspected that such fraudulent withdrawals been made from some other accounts also," the complaint said.

According to the MEA inquiry, Rs 25 lakh belonging to Ankit Sharma, Rs 25 lakh of Anuk Singh Tokas, Rs 21.90 lakh of Raj Jumar Ganger and Rs 20 lakh of V D Mahto have been fraudulently withdrawn.