New FIR in illegal transfer of Bihar govt funds to NGO Srijan in Bhagalpur
The FIR was registered at Kotwali police station by the block development officer (BDO) of Kahalgaon after it was detected that funds were transferred to Srijan from the accounts of the block office at two bank branches.
A new FIR was registered at south eastern Bihar district headquarters town of Bhagalpur, late night on Thursday, in connection with illegal transfer of Rs 13-crore of government funds to Srijan Mahila Sahyog Samiti, a cooperative society, in Kahalgaon block of Bhagalpur district.
The FIR was registered at Kotwali police station by the block development officer of Kahalgaon after it was detected that funds were transferred to Srijan from the accounts of the block office at branches of Bank of India (BoI) and Indian Bank at Bhagalpur, 190 km east of state capital Patna.
The financial fraud was detected during status verification of the accounts by a team of officers, constituted by district magistrate Adesh T.
Bhagalpur-based Srijan has been identified as the main beneficiary of fraudulent transfer of hundreds of crores of rupees from government accounts over past several years, in Bhagalpyur and other districts. A CBI probe into the scam is already underway.
The FIR on Thursday was registered against employees of the two banks and office-bearers of Srijan, under Indian Penal Code sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 120b (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc).
This was the sixth FIR to have been lodged this week in connection with the Srijan scam. Three FIRs were registered on Tuesday for illegal transfer of Rs 35 crore to Srijan from accounts of Sanhoula, Sahkund and Gaoradih block offices.
Two more were registered on Wednesday for diversion of Rs 17.4 crore from the accounts of Jagdishpur and Pirpainty block offices.
With the latest one on Thursday, 18 FIRs have been lodged so far for alleged diversion of more than Rs 1,300-crore of government funds from various departments in Bhagalpur, Banka and Saharsa districts to the NGO, Srijan.