E-Paper
CBI court jails 3 for Rs1-cr SGRY scam in Ballia
The SGRY was a flagship rural employment scheme aimed at providing wage employment and food security to rural households.
A special CBI court in Lucknow has sentenced three persons, including a senior official of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Ballia, to five years of rigorous imprisonment for causing a wrongful loss of over ₹1 crore to the government exchequer under the Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY), CBI officials said on Sunday.
The court, on December 20 convicted Satyendra Singh Gangwar, then chief finance and accounts officer, DRDA Ballia; Ashok Kumar Upadhyay, then junior accounts clerk, DRDA Ballia; and Raghunath Yadav, a private individual. The convicts were also fined a total of ₹77,000.
The SGRY was a flagship rural employment scheme aimed at providing wage employment and food security to rural households.
According to the CBI, the case was registered on October 31, 2008, after the agency took over a 2006 case of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) lodged at Garwar police station in Ballia district. The FIR had named 135 accused in connection with large-scale financial irregularities in the scheme’s implementation.
The CBI alleged that the accused caused a loss of ₹75.12 lakh in cash and misappropriated food grains worth ₹31.10 lakh, cheating the government. The offence involved forgery, use of forged documents and destruction of official records to conceal the fraud.
After investigation, a charge sheet was filed on June 30, 2010, leading to the conviction.
