Bhubaneswar: Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Bhubaneswar Saturday arrested two fraudsters for impersonating as IAS and PWD officers and cheating a businessman and his son of more than Rs 1.17 crore. They were produced in the court Saturday.
The accused men have been identified as Surya Mani Tripathy and Amit Kumar. They were arrested from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar respectively under sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of IPC.
According to EOW, a case was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by Rikab Chand Munot alias Mukesh Jain, who is the proprietor of Rashtriya Stainless Steel at Jindal House in New Delhi. He had a branch office at Kalinganagar in Bhubaneswar with his son Akshay Munot as its proprietor.
The complainant through one of his friends came in contact with Rajesh Gahlot, who introduced himself as a RAW officer having many IAS officers in Odisha as his friends in 2017. He subsequently introduced the complainant and his son Akshay to Surya Mani at Odisha Niwas, New Delhi as an IAS Officer who was posted as Additional Secretary to Government of Odisha in PWD (Public Works Department).
They assured the complainant and his son to help them in getting high-value government contracts under “Pradhan Mantree Yojana” in Odisha.
Later, both Suryamani and Amit took the complainant and his son to Bhubaneswar Court and prepared the agreements on stamp papers and also got the documents and agreement papers purportedly signed by assistant engineer, EIC (Civil) at Nirman Soudha in Bhubaneswar and took the signature of Akshay on behalf of Rashtriya Stainless Steel and also got the agreement papers notarized.
In March 2018, Surya Mani and Amit called the complainant and his son to Bhubaneswar asking them to deposit a sum of Rs 25 lakhs with the government treasury for registration of their firm with the PWD, Odisha for issuance of work order.
Accordingly, the complainant along with the accused went to the premises of the government treasury at Odisha Legislative Assembly campus in Bhubaneswar and at the insistence of the accused, paid Rs 25 lakh to one lady and Surya Mani collected a treasury receipt in respect of Rs 25 lakhs and handed over the same to the complainant.
Later, Surya Mani Tripathy handed over two work orders to the complainant, purportedly issued by Asst Engineer, EIC (Civil) Nirman Soudha, Bhubaneswar for the contract value of Rs 3 crore sand 4 crores March 15, 2018 and again August 21, 2018 for two work orders having contract value of Rs 32.52 crore and Rs 47.52 crore for laying rising main and distribution pipelines of HDPF / GI/ DI construction of pump house, compound wall, RCC ESR, SB Chamber Stand Post etc for pipe water supply schemes to Taraboi under 30 districts and 314 block in Odisha.
The accused then went on collecting money from the complainant and his son on various pretexts.
Surya Mani also handed over a fake letter, purportedly signed by Accounts Officer EIC (Civil), Nirman Soudha, Bhubaneswar addressed to Branch Manager of Axis Bank at Unit-IV, Bhubaneswar requesting therein to transfer an amount of Rs 1.52 crore and Rs 3.16 crore (i.e. totaling to Rs.4.68 crore) towards the 20 per cent advance against the work order and insisted the complainant to sign on the money receipts against receipt of above money from office of EIC (Civil), Nirman Soudh, Bhubaneswar.
Accordingly, Akshay gave two money receipts of 4.68 crore but no amount was transferred to his account. It was when no work order issued, the complainant started doubting the conduct of the accused persons.
They sought information under RTI about the accused persons and the work orders given to them and then realised that they had been duped.
During the investigation, it was learnt that Tripathy worked as a clerk in the office of Directorate of Technical Education & Training (DTET), Cuttack, whereas Amit Kumar was unemployed.
PNN