Pending disciplinary action, the government on Thursday suspended three officials of Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (KRIDL) in connection with alleged misappropriation of fixed deposit of ₹ 55 crore of the corporation at Kulai branch of Indian Overseas Bank in Mangaluru last month.
The officials suspended are Veeranagouda Patil, Chief Finance Officer I, Prashanth Kumar M.V., Deputy Finance Officer, and Shankarachari, Superintendent (Finance), all in Bengaluru. They have been suspended until further orders.
In an order, the Department of Rural Development and Panchayatraj said that a preliminary inquiry into the case by the government revealed that it was not appropriate to select a bank branch, which is Indian Overseas Bank, Kulai branch, in a far away place like Mangaluru, to deposit additional grant allocated to KRIDL.
It said that the head office of KRIDL was shifted from Chinnaswamy Stadium to the Grameenabhivruddi Bhavan in Bengaluru in February 2013. But the bank branch in Mangaluru had issued the bond certificate for the fixed deposit amount of ₹ 35 crore on August 30, 2017 to the old address of the KRIDL. Another bond certificate issued on August 24 for a fixed deposit amount of ₹ 20 crore did not have the address of the corporation. This itself gave scope for suspicion. The finance officials of the corporation concerned should have immediately returned the two certificates to the bank branch for issuing proper certificates. They did not do it.
The order said that after depositing the amount (₹ 55 crore) in the Kulai branch, some persons have created fake memorandum and article of association of the KRIDL and a fake board resolution and identity cards of the corporation for opening a current account in the Kulai branch and have transferred the amount from the bank branch to different other accounts in cooperation with the bank.
The order said that the bank has stated that it has not issued any quotation to KRIDL to keep the fixed deposit and not issued any fixed deposit bonds. The inquiry found that there was financial indiscipline and the officials had violated the Karnataka Financial Code thereby becoming responsible for misappropriation of money.
