Delhi firm withdraws security deposit, booked on Dharamsala MC complaint

A scam involving fraudulent withdrawal of the security deposit with the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation has come to light. The local police have registered an FIR against a Delhi-based company for committing the fraud, SP Shalini Agnihotri said here.

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As per the FIR registered on the complaint of the civic body, Delhi-based M/s Garuna Management Services Private Limited was awarded a contract of door-to-door collection of garbage in 10 wards of the the hill city. A sum Rs 16.38 lakh was taken from the firm in the form of a fixed deposit receipt (FDR) as security deposit jointly in its name and that of Municipal Commissioner Zaffar Iqbal.

However, a few months after the contract was awarded, the company failed to do the job properly. The municipal corporation issued many show-cause notices to the firm but it abandoned the assigned work without prior notice on October 14, 2021. The corporation then reassigned the sanitation contract to another agency.

Subsequently, the civic body initiated a move to forfeit the firm’s security deposit for the violation of the terms of the contract. On July 2 this year, Punjab and Sindh Bank, New Delhi, informed the municipal corporation that the said FDR was closed on May 10, 2024, and one of the parties had withdrawn the amount.

The bank sent a copy of the FDR amounting to Rs 20,13,745 (including interest) of the closed account in the joint names of the firm and the Municipal Commissioner to the civic body. The sanitation firm withdrew this amount. On perusal of the FDR copy, it was found that the signature of the Municipal Commissioner had allegedly been forged and the stamp/official seal on the FDR was also fake and used for the purpose of committing theft, forgery, cheating and misappropriation of government funds.

The company had allegedly forged the signature of the Municipal Commissioner. SP Shalini Agnihotri said that a team from Dharamsala police station conducted a preliminary inquiry and scrutinized documents provided by the establishment branch of the municipal corporation and then registered a criminal case under Section 420 of the IPC and began an investigation. Since the crime was committed before the enactment of the Bharatiya Nayaya Samhita, the case was registered under the IPC, the SP added.