Ludhiana MC supervisor booked for embezzling ₹79 lakh

The fraudulent activity came to light during a routine audit, prompting immediate action against the accused, Brijpal, a sewer supervisor with the civic body

Blurb: Accused sed to transfer salaries into accounts of ghost employees

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The municipal corporation (MC) has suspended an employee who is already facing two cases of attempted murder, for allegedly embezzling a big sum of ₹79.48 lakh. The accused allegedly diverted salaries into fraudulent bank accounts registered under the names of ghost employees, before secretly withdrawing the funds.

The fraudulent activity came to light during a routine audit, prompting immediate action against the accused, Brijpal, a sewer supervisor with the civic body.

He was booked following the statement of MC joint commissioner Sonam Chaudhary. Who told police that the accused had been grabbing the money for the past 11 years.

Police launched a probe into the same and registered a first information report following the primary investigation.

The joint commissioner said officials found ₹79.48 lakh had been unaccounted for during an audit. When they started the investigation, they found that Brijpal used to transfer money to the accounts of sanitation workers, four of whom were not MC employees.

Upon looking further, they found that the accused himself had opened the accounts using dubious identities and was embezzling the money for 11 years.

Sharing details, assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Lakhvir Singh, who is investigating the case, said the accused has been booked under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 465, 467, 468 and 471 (all forgery) of the Indian Penal Code at Division number 1 police station and a hunt is on for his arrest.

On March 27, Crime Investigation Agency staff 2 had arrested Brijpal, his aides Nisha Sabharwal and Ishu Saraswal for a murder bid on Right to Information Act activist Arun Bhatti.

During investigation, police had found that Brijpal and his aide had orchestrated a murder bid on another RTI activist and a steel trader Rajesh Kumar Jain, 60, of Nikka Mal chowk on February 11, 2022. According to the police, the accused Brijpal had paid ₹3 lakh to Nisha Sabharwal of Waddi Haibowal, when Jain had tried to extract some information under the RTI Act.

After his arrest municipal commissioner Shena Aggarwal had marked an inquiry to joint commissioner Chaudhary to investigate alleged irregularities in the regularisation of contractual MC employees in April. During the investigation, officials uncovered the alleged embezzlement.