JAGATSINGHPUR: Raghunathpur police on Monday registered a cheating and misappropriation case against three persons for embezzling Rs 1.62 crore from projects under the Ama Gaon Ama Bikash scheme.
The accused include a block development officer, junior engineer Saraswati Muduli and another person whose name was not revealed for investigation purposes.
The incident came to light after a social activist Gobind Ojha of Redhua village within Raghunathpur police limits sought details through RTI Act regarding the implementation of different projects. After receiving information and suspecting the authenticity of the bills, invoice and voucher copies that were submitted by the JE to the BDO, he came to know that the bills were issued in the name of one of Ranjan Kumar Sahoo’s company Basanti suppliers, which were allegedly fake.
Apart from the misappropriation of funds, he also came to know that the trio had cheated on GST by submitting forged bills. Sahoo further claimed that his company had not issued any such bill and the trio had duped the GST department by submitting false bills which the BDO reportedly approved without verification.
Following the revelation, Ojha sought the intervention of the Project Director, DRDA and other higher authorities demanding legal action against the accused and also lodged FIR with Raghunathpur police, but to no avail. Counsel of the case, Dolagobinda Mohapatra informed that Ojha tried to draw the attention of the higher authorities to the incident but they reportedly paid no heed.
“He sat in front of the court requesting the judicial magistrate to direct the IIC Raghunathpur to register a case,” he said. IIC Rajkishore Behera said, “On receiving complaint petition, a case was registered against the accused under relevant sections of the IPC. The investigation is underway.”