A senior officer with the Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation has filed a complaint with the Ashok Nagar police accusing his colleague of siphoning off ₹15 crore into a fake account opened in the name of the managing director. He alleged that this scam had been going on for two-and-a- half years, with the collusion of officials from a nationalised bank.
In his complaint filed on Monday, Narayana K. Naik, General Manager (Administration), said his senior colleague, G.C. Kishore Kumar, GM (Finance), opened a fake account in a nationalised bank in the name of the managing director of the KSHDC, and allegedly diverted funds into the account between December 2016 to October 2018.
The cheating came to light when Rajiv Pratap Sharma, MD of KSHDC, received a letter from the bank seeking authorisation for the account. Mr. Sharma verified details and found that no such account had been opened by the corporation. He sought details from the bank before ordering an internal probe.
The probe revealed that Kishore Kumar was responsible for opening the account, said an official. Mr. Sharma suspended Kishore Kumar and directed the administrative section to lodge a police complaint.
“All nationalised banks have to scrutinise applications before opening accounts for government corporations or public sector undertakings, but here they went ahead and opened the account with cash deposits without any official correspondence or intimation,” a police officer said.
The Ashok Nagar police have taken up a case of criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery and have sought details of the fraud. “No arrests have been made. We have sought the transaction statements of the fake account,” a senior police officer said.
Mr. Sharma said they have requested the government to do a detailed audit to understand the magnitude and the methodology of the scam.