Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch has arrested two persons, a cashier with Balikuda block office and an office assistant with Union Bank of India (UBI), on charges of embezzlement of government funds, an official said Tuesday.
EOW sources said Nihar Ranjan Das, a cashier at Balikuda block office, and Sanjay Samal, an office assistant with UBI’s Arilo branch in Jagatsinghpur, have been taken into custody Monday on the basis of an EOW case registered under Sections 420, 409, 403, 467, 468, 471, 477A and 20B of the IPC following a complaint filed by Balikuda BDO Kalyan Saurav Dash.
Dash had alleged that the then manager of UBI’s Arilo branch had unauthorisedly debited `2,63,65,089 from the official accounts of Balikuda BDO and misappropriated the money.
Investigation revealed that the BDO has been officially maintaining two savings bank accounts with Corporation Bank (now UBI) for dealing with the funds received under Ama Gaon, Ama Bikash scheme and the Critical Gap Fund, an EOW source said.
“During the local fund audit held during December 2020, the BDO came to know that there was an unauthorised debit of `2,61,89,272 and Rs 1,75,817 from the accounts maintained for Ama Gaon Ama Bikash and Critical Gap Fund respectively,” the source pointed out.
The EOW found that Das was working as a cashier in the block office and was dealing with the accounts when the fraud occurred. “A considerable amount out of the total misappropriated funds is found to have been diverted to the personal account of Das. Similarly, around Rs 20 lakh has been diverted to Samal’s personal account,” said an EOW official.
It has also been ascertained that out of Rs 20 lakh, a major share has been routed through the then branch manager of the bank, Jugal Kishore Rout who had committed suicide January 1 last after the fraud came to the fore.