CBI court convicts officials of CWC for submitting fake bills

NEW DELHI: A special CBI court has convicted 14 persons including two former Deputy Directors of Central Water Commission and officials of Pay and Accounts office, to defraud the government by submitting forged bills.

After a long trial, the then officials of CWC, including Deputy Director J P Sharma, Assistants Jai Kumar Singhal and Y P Sharma and upper division clerk Om Prakash Narang along with then Pay and Accounts Officer S K Aggrawal have been sentenced by the Special Judge to seven years rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 2.01 lakh each.

Another set of the then CWC officials Deputy Director Om Prakash, Draftsman Om Prakash, Section officers Chandreshwar Majhi and Shiv Sagar Nayak besides then official Hayat Singh have been sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine ranging from Rs 10,000 to 1.10 lakh.

The then Assistant Director B M Ghosh and Computer Assistant Jeet Ram have been sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped with fine of Rs. 30,000 while the then Assistant Director I Yeshudanan and Senior Accounts Officer Natha Ram Suman have been sent to one-year rigorous imprisonment with fine from Rs 1000 to 10,000.

CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said that the agency had registered a case in 2001 on a reference from Central Water Commission against the accused for the allegations that they had connived with the officers of Pay and Account Officer in defalcating government money by making forged and false bills and vouchers.

"Investigation showed that accused officials of Pay and Accounts Officer and CWC had entered into a criminal conspiracy to defraud government money by raising fictitious bills supported with fake sanction orders. The accused got them passed and further fraudulently withdrew government money through PAO cheques some of which were issued in the name of non-existent persons," Gaur said.

He said the officials had committed irregularities in withdrawal of pay and allowances to the tune of Rs. 23.67 lakhs from July 1999 to March 2000, out of which Rs. 19.30 lakh was claimed to have been refunded by the concerned official through chalans which were found to be fake during November, 2000 by the Special Audit Team.