Fraudulent withdrawal from Bihar lawmaker’s MPLADS account: Charge sheet filed

Arrest warrants have been issued against Ved Prakash Upadhyay of Jamshedpur and Shrawan Mallaya Teglapelli of Maharastra in this connection. Two of the accused, Sandeep Bhogilal Kothari and Ganesh Vitthal Gawade, were arrested by Maharashtra Police

The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police has filed a charge sheet against fraudsters and obtained an arrest warrant against two in connection with fraudulent transactions of ₹89 lakh from Maharajganj lawmaker Janardan Singh’s Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) fund by using cloned cheques.

Representational Image.

Arrest warrants have been issued against Ved Prakash Upadhyay of Jamshedpur and Shrawan Mallaya Teglapelli of Maharastra in this connection. Two of the accused, Sandeep Bhogilal Kothari and Ganesh Vitthal Gawade, were arrested by Maharashtra Police.

As per EOU, two cloned cheques for ₹42 lakh and ₹47 lakh respectively were used at Bank of Baroda (BoB) branch in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, to make the transactions from Sigriwal’s MPLAD account at Chhapra on November 4, 2020. Police said Sigriwal had also informed the Lok Sabha Speaker and Union ministry of home affairs about the fraudulent withdrawals.

A First Information Report was lodged by Saran district planning officer Vidhanchandra Rai on November 25 last year, making the manager of BoB Chhapra branch an accused. As per the FIR, the planning officer had the original cheques and no SMS or verification call was received from bank before transacting the funds.

Additional director general (EOU) Nayyar Hasnain Khan said police filed a charge sheet against Binay Kumar Singh of east Singhbhoom and Jagjot Singh, a B Tech passout from RBS Engineering College of Engineering and Technology, Jamshedpur. As per the charge sheet, Binay procured the SIM linked with the bank account illegally while Jajgot provided technical support through virtual numbers.

Police recovered the SIM and other incriminating documents from Binay. Khan said the amount was first transferred in Kothari’s account who then shifted it to Gavde’s account from where it was withdrawn.

He said that the role of some other employees of BoB Ahmadnagar was under scanner. The bank also launched departmental proceedings against them.