On the run for over a month, kingpin of CIDCO bogus employee scam arrested

After being on the run from the law for more than a month, Sagar Tapadia, 50, was arrested from his residence in Kharghar.

NAVI MUMBAI: After being on the run for more than a month, the main accused in the City and Industrial Development Corporation’s (CIDCO) bogus employee scam, Sagar Tapadia, was arrested from his residence in Kharghar on Wednesday.

On the run for over a month, kingpin of CIDCO bogus employee scam arrested

“Tapadia was on the run ever since the scam was unearthed. He had approached the sessions court for anticipatory bail and there has been no decision made on his application yet. We got a tip off that he has come to Kharghar to visit his residence and we arrested him,” said Giridhar Gore, senior police inspector from CBD Belapur police station.

“As of now, Tapadia claims that only he is involved in the scam, but we are verifying the claim. He says that his house in Kharghar is a rental premise, and we are verifying it as well. We are checking if he has invested the scam money in any properties. He is in police custody till Monday and the investigations are on,” Gore added. Tapadia, 50, who worked as a personnel officer, is currently under suspension from CIDCO.

On April 12, Fayaz Khan, CIDCO manager, Personnel, had registered the case with CBD Belapur police station after their chief vigilance officer found that 28 employees mentioned in CIDCO’s employee rolls as contractual employees were not employed with them.

Tapadia was booked under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 474 (having possession of forged document) of the IPC.

In one such case, Chetan Bawat, a masseur who works with an app that provides services at home, had found that his TDS was deducted by CIDCO though he was not their employee. He had approached the planning authority to inform them.

Bawat’s father, who was an employee of Aurangabad CIDCO, died on duty due to heart attack in the year 2000. After that Bawat had many times approached CIDCO with his papers including identity proofs, hierarchy certificate and other documents to get his father’s job and in the course, had met Tapadia several times. Tapadia was in the possession of all the documents of Bawat.

According to the police, Tapadia had used Bawat’s PAN Card to open a bank account and forged the signature of Khan to create his appointment letter. Similarly, a total of 28 bogus employees were found in the records drawing a cumulative annual salary of ₹2.81 core from 2017 onwards. Tapadia was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in a graft case in 2019, and no salary was transferred to the bogus employees during this period.