Female accountant with Kharghar hospital booked for ₹14 lakh fraud

She had transferred the money of the patient to her own bank account as well as that of her husband and a friend

Navi Mumbai

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The Kharghar police has booked a woman working as an accountant with a super Specialty Hospital of Kharghar for misappropriating the hospital’s funds amounting to ₹14 lakh. The accused identified as Ujwala Gavankar has been booked along with her husband Prashant Gavankar and her friend Diksha Khot.

Gavankar was employed in the account department of the hospital in January 2022. She was entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the work related to the insurance of the patients coming to the hospital. In the last month of April, when one of the co-owners of the hospital demanded the amount of a patient’s bill from the accounts department of the hospital, the doctor was informed that the said patient’s bill had been paid. The doctor inquired about it with other staff and found that Gavankar had transferred the money of the patient to her own bank account as well as that of her husband and a friend. The doctor also found that she had diverted the bills of other patients as well in a similar way to the accounts of her other relatives. The doctor eventually found that she had embezzled a total of ₹14 from November 2022 to April 2023.

“On confronting Gavankar, she accepted that she had embezzled the amount and promised to give it back. She paid ₹2.50 lakh initially to the hospital and did not return the remaining money even after the hospital tried contacting her several times. After realising that she might not pay the money, the doctor, who is also one of the co-owners of the hospital, approached us and registered a case. We are investigating it further,” a police officer from Kharghar police station said.

Gavankar along with her husband friend has been booked under section 408 (criminal breach of trust by an employee), 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.