At least 15 individuals, including government officials and a former sarpanch of Tusaini village in Nuh, were booked on Wednesday for allegedly hiring “non-existent employees” to run a water tank and embezzling public money in the form of their salary withdrawals, police said on Thursday.
Police officials said the water tank was constructed in 2009, but it could never become operational. However, appointments were shown on pretext of running it from 2016 to 2019 during which the major part of the embezzlement is suspected to have taken place.
The matter came to light in 2022, when it was revealed that the Punhana municipal board had transacted money into the bank account of Tusaini panchayat under the head of “salaries for employees operating the water tank pump.”
According to police, a resident of the Tusaini village, Mohammad Sabir, filed several complaints with the authorities concerned. However, when no action was taken, he moved court. The court ordered an investigation, following which an FIR under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and other provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act was registered against 15 suspects at Sadar Punhana police station on Wednesday.
A senior police official said that they will soon contact the officials concerned, especially those from the Haryana public health engineering department (PHED) and the Punhana civic body, to share details of the money disbursed as “salary” for all the posts.
{{/usCountry}}A senior police official said that they will soon contact the officials concerned, especially those from the Haryana public health engineering department (PHED) and the Punhana civic body, to share details of the money disbursed as “salary” for all the posts.
{{/usCountry}}“Verification will be carried out using the panchayat’s bank account about how much money was actually disbursed as salary for the ghost employees who were shown operating the tank and the pump, and legal action against those involved in the embezzlement will be taken,” he said, adding that a junior engineer of the PHED and the former village sarpanch were suspected to be the key conspirators.
Krishan Kumar, public relations officer of Nuh police, said that investigation has just started. “Report will be submitted to the court for taking necessary action against the suspects,” he added.