BHUBANESWAR: In the first-ever conviction in Odisha relating to a cheque cloning case, two persons were sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment (RI) for swindling over Rs 2.45 crore by forging bank documents.
The Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors court in Balasore on Friday convicted Subas Ghisingh Giri and Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi under sections 420,467,468,471 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Besides, a fine of Rs 2.5 lakh each was also imposed on them. If the convicts fail to deposit the fine, they will have to undergo further imprisonment of 27 months each.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch had registered a case in March, 2022 after receiving a complaint from Barbil municipality executive officer Abhishek Panda regarding fraudulent transfer of over Rs 2.45 crore from the civic body’s official account maintained with Bank of Baroda. Investigation revealed Barbil municipality’s executive officer was the authorised signatory of its bank account and each transaction was made by his signatures.
In March, 2022, Giri, Naqvi and others managed to transfer/withdraw Rs 2.45 crore from Barbil municipality’s bank account by depositing a cloned cheque by forging the signature of Panda. Of the total swindled amount, Rs 70.16 lakh was found to have been diverted into the account of Naqvi maintained with Bank of India, while Rs 25 lakh was deposited in the account of Giri with ICICI Bank. EOW had arrested Giri from West Bengal’s Barrackpore and Naqvi from Raipur in Chhattisgarh.
“Apart from implementing a traditional approach while carrying out the investigation, expert assistance of Handwriting Bureau, analysis of CCTV footage and assistance from BSNL authorities played an important role to make the case watertight,” said an EOW officer. EOW had submitted the chargesheet of the case in July, 2022. The agency said this was the fastest conviction of its case as the court awarded the sentence in just 17 months from the date the chargesheet was filed.