MADURAI: The ACB of CBI Madurai has registered a case against seven employees, including five permanent and two contract, of VOC Port Authority in Thoothukudi over financial irregularities in the disbursement of pension funds amounting to Rs 4.51 crore between 2017 and 2024.
The case has been registered against senior accounts officer N Anuradha, accounts officer S Palanikumarasamy, data processing officer (EDP) J Rojers Joseph Durairaja, assistant director (EDP) C Kaliappan, senior assistant (CHD) Shanthana Shankar and two outsourcing employees-- R Manikandan Prabhu and S Kishore Babu, both from Thoothukudi.
According to the FIR registered on June 8, the official ID of the port carried exclusive rights, enabling corrections, deletions, additions, and modifications of pensioners details. Any such changes required authentication and approval from the authorities. However, the suspects allgedly altered the bank account numbers of 27 pensioners to their names, and prepared payment bills in their relatives, friends and associates’ names.
Some of the pensioners were dead and their pensions were also transferred by creating new accounts. The pension funds have been withdrawn later from the accounts by
the suspects. The officials approved it and diverted the pensions to fraudulent accounts with knowledge, the FIR added.