Mumbai police clerks suspended for siphoning off ₹6.5 cr via ghost salary accounts

The suspended staff members were identified as Vijaya Ashok Chavan, an office superintendent with the armed police at Marol, and Amol Arunrao Meshram, a senior clerk with the western regional division

MUMBAI: Mumbai police on Tuesday suspended two staff members for allegedly creating fake service IDs in the name of 10 non-existential police personnel and misappropriating nearly ₹6.5 crore credited to their salary accounts between 2019 and 2020.

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The suspended staff members were identified as Vijaya Ashok Chavan, an office superintendent with the armed police at Marol, and Amol Arunrao Meshram, a senior clerk with the western regional division.

According to crime branch officials, Chavan and Meshram created the 10 fictitious service IDs and Defined Contribution Pension Scheme (DCPS) IDs when the police department was transitioning to a new salary portal. Clerks at the ministerial level colluded with the duo to fabricate attendance registers and records of ghost employees, and suspicious salary transactions were detected in the accounts of the ghost employees from December 2019 till February 2020 and again from June to September 2020, investigators said.

Chavan and Meshram were suspended by the Joint Commissioner of Police (administration) under the Maharashtra Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1979. The action against the duo was subject to the preliminary inquiry and court proceedings in the case, the order said.

Investigators said they were now probing the identities of the 10 ghost employees and determining who controlled the bank accounts opened in their names.