BENGALURU: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the state legislature has recommended to the state government to file a criminal case against those officials involved in the BDA mutual fund scam. The committee has also recommended to confiscate their properties to recover the loss caused by them. The committee, in its report, said the scam caused huge loss to the state government. Civil and criminal cases should be filed against the officials, it said. V Somanna (BJP) tabled the report based on a 2014-15 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report.
According to the PAC report, many bank accounts were opened without the approval of the BDA Commissioner.The finance members of BDA, through oral instructions to bank officials, transferred funds from these illegal accounts and invested in mutual funds. Bank officials were also involved in the dealings. The report further stated that the finance members created fake records in BDA to mislead the authorities.
During the tenure of Sandeep Dash, M N Sheshappa and B Ganganna as finance members, `4,046.45 crores of BDA money was invested in mutual funds illegally.
By the end of July 2015, BDA incurred a loss of `192.41 crores because of investing in mutual funds. As the mutual funds are invested through broker agencies, `50.71 crores was paid to them as commission. The commission amount was either paid to these members or to the accounts of their source. This apart, the members had transferred `10.1 crores to three different agencies which are not related to BDA, including `4.5 crores to Coffee Board and `3.07 crore to BMRCL. The amount transferred to these agencies were not returned to the BDA.
The committee also said that ` 50 crores from the BDA pension fund was invested in mutual funds in June 2013 for which they got a commission of `60.48 lakh. The second division assistant in BDA wrote the accounts and no senior official endorsed it. BDA’s Charted Accountants too failed to check these illegal accounts, the report said.