Bail pleas of all 5 accused in home guard scam rejected

Noida: The anti-corruption court in Meerut has rejected the bail pleas of five officials of UP home guard, arrested for their suspected role in a multi-crore scam in which salaries were disbursed on the basis of fake attendance.
Observing that prima facie the accused had committed a serious offence through a criminal conspiracy which was a “form of an organised crime”, the court said that there were not sufficient grounds to grant bail. The court also noted the contention of police that the probe into the modus operandi of the accused was still on.
Divisional commandant (Aligarh division) Ram Narayan Chaurasia, who was earlier posted in Gautam Budh Nagar as a district commandant, assistant company commander Satish Chand and platoon commandants Montu Kumar, Satveer Yadav and Shailendra Kumar were arrested on November 20 last year.
Sirajuddin Alvi, additional government counsel, Meerut anti-corruption court, told TOI that the bail pleas were rejected on January 31.
Chaurasia had stated before additional sessions judge (special judge) PN Pandey, anti-corruption court, that he was “framed” and that his track record was clear till now. In his plea, he said he was arrested when he had gone to meet the then SSP to give a clarification on the alleged irregularities in preparation of the muster rolls. The plea further stated that there was no possibility of manipulation with the evidence as all the records had been provided to the investigating officer. The prosecution said that during an investigation by the then SP (city) Vineet Jaiswal of muster rolls of 114 home guards for May-June 2019 for several police stations, including Phase III, Sector 49, Expressway, Knowledge Park, Sector 58, Phase II, Sector 24 and the Noida observation home, 50% of the salaries were found to have been increased.
“It had come to fore that the main accused told the co-accused that he would clear the muster rolls and half of the increased money would go to him,” police told the court.
“From the case diary, it is clear that the three-member committee formed by the home guard headquarters, which probed last year’s muster rolls in the district, found that the scam could be worth around Rs 1.34 crore. The accused showed the presence of absent home guards and a conspiracy was hatched to pass a salary different than the valid salary (sic),” police submitted.
Home guards — part of the Indian paramilitary force — do not have a fixed monthly salary and are paid on the basis of the number of days they have worked.