Chandigarh: Former parking contractor booked for submitting forged bank guarantees

The FIR came on the complaint of Sunil Dutt, superintendent, parking, MC, Chandigarh, who alleged that Sanjay Sharma and other directors of Paschatya Entertainment had submitted forged bank sureties

Police have lodged an FIR against a former parking contractor, Paschatya Entertainment Private Limited, for providing forged bank guarantees to the municipal corporation (MC) during the allotment of 57 Zone-2 parking lots in 2020.

Chandigarh MC discovered the fraud after trying to recover unpaid licence fee worth ₹6.5 crore from the Zone-2 contractor. (iStock)

The FIR came on the complaint of Sunil Dutt, superintendent, parking, MC, who alleged that Sanjay Sharma and other directors of Paschatya Entertainment had submitted forged bank sureties.

The three-year contract of this contractor and another firm, that was managing 32 lots in Zone 1, had ended last month. Since then MC is managing all 89 parking lots on its own.

While working on recovering ₹6.5 crore unpaid licence fee from the Zone 2 contractor, MC officials had recently approached the bank concerned to recover the money through bank guarantees submitted by the contractor.

However, the bank informed MC that the guarantees for ₹1.5 crore were fake.

On MC’s complaint, police have registered a case under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at the Sector-17 police station and are working to arrest the accused.

MC, meanwhile, will also conduct an internal probe to establish the involvement of any MC or bank officials in the fraud.

The contractor will also have to shell out over ₹6 lakh as damages for not acting on multiple notices sent out by MC over various issues.