NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday booked a Defence Accounts official and another person for allegedly siphoning off more than ₹53.63 lakh in 2016 using forged bills pertaining to the movement of an Army unit which never happened.
The forgery was detected last year when a similar bill for ₹1 crore, pertaining to another fake Army unit movement, was submitted for clearance. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged with the CBI.
The accused were identified as Record Clerk Ashwani Kumar and Satish Kumar. The accused had shown the arrival of a new unit – 604SIU – from Guwahati to the audit jurisdiction of Jammu office of the Controller of Defence Accounts.
The accused had created three bills and an authority letter purportedly issued by the Guwahati office of the Controller of Defence Accounts. The bills were submitted in March 2016, when there was a huge rush for clearing all dues of various Army units. They went undetected and payments were cleared.
However, the forgery was detected the second time. The officials found that the bank account given for transfer of funds belonged to one Satish Kumar and it was not a public fund account of the said unit.
When confronted, Satish agreed to repay the entire amount. However, he deposited only Rs.44.17 lakh. “The balance amount of ₹9.46 lakh and interest of ₹2.04 lakh stand as a loss to exchequer,” said an official.
