Sarpanch, panchayat secretary booked for embezzling funds

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Kapurthala, December 18

The Tribune in these columns had reported a major fraud in the Rural Development and Panchayat Department and forging of three cheques of an exorbitant amount a month ago. The police have now booked the sarpanch and panchayat secretary in this regard.

The names of the sarpanch and the panchayat secretary of a Kapurthala village had appeared in the inquiry report.

Cases under Sections 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC have been registered against the suspects.

According to the probe carried out by the department, both suspects had forged three cheques, besides misappropriating funds amounting to Rs 18, 62,000.

Misappropriation of funds

The sarpanch and the panchayat secretary misappropriated the funds that were granted to the department for various works.

Notably, the funds amounting to Rs 42,63,079 had been granted by the department for carrying out the works in the village. The grant had come under the 13th Finance Commission, Punjab Infrastructure Development board (PIDB), and cattle fare funds. Of this too, misappropriation to the tune of Rs 10 lakh was made with the cattle fare funds. Affter conducting the probe, District Development Panchayat Officer (DDPO) Iqbal Singh had also written to the police.

Subhanpur SHO said the cases had been registered and notices had been sent to the suspects.

Forging of cheques

The suspects made the then Block Development Panchayat Officer (BDPO) sign three cheques of the amount of Rs 99,500, Rs 49,100 and Rs 57,000, respectively.

According to the information, while making the BDPO sign the cheques, the officer was told by the them that several works relating to the village were started and the money was supposed to be given to sellers from whom material for the cleaning work had been brought.

However, after the BDPO signed the cheques, the sarpanch and the panchayat secretary did some alteration and changed the amount from Rs 99,500 to Rs 8,99,000, Rs 49,100 to Rs 18,49,100 and Rs 57,000 to Rs 5,57,000, respectively. Thus, an amount of Rs 31 lakh extra was debited from the account.