MC officials booked in ₹3.1cr embezzlement case, 1 held

Times News Network
Ludhiana: The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) has registered a corruption case against retired superintending engineer, MC Rajinder Singh, executive engineer (XEN) Ranbir Singh and deputy controller, finance and accounts (DCFA) Pankaj Garg, for misappropriation of Rs 3.16 crore. Executive engineer Ranbir Singh was arrested by the VB and will be produced in court on Wednesday.

A VB spokesman said that the case was filed after investigation of a complaint lodged by Jaspinder Singh, electric pump driver posted at MC Zone C.The complainant alleged that Ranbir Singh, who was posted in the operation and maintenance branch, received Rs 3.16 crore as advance payment from May 2021 to Sep 2022 from the accounts department to make payments to Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) for various tubewell works. The complainant claimed that the money was siphoned off by the accused.
He said that during investigations, VB did not find any documents related to any proposal or demand by PSPCL to pay advance for tubewell works in Ludhiana. He explained that official procedure mandated a proposal made by the junior engineer or sub-divisional officer (SDO) to be submitted to the executive engineer and said that no such process had been followed by the accused.
Investigations revealed that Ranbir Singh showed a fake demand by PSPCL on a file, which he forwarded to superintending engineer Rajinder Singh for approval of senior MC officers. Rajinder Singh did not verify the documents seeking withdrawal of advance payments and forwarded it to the joint commissioner, additional commissioner and MC commissioner for approval. The spokesman said that the executive engineer and superintending engineer misused their official positions to forward the case to senior officials for approval. He added that the joint commissioner, additional commissioner and MC commissioner also approved the cases without checking/verifying the documents.
The spokesman said that after the MC commissioner’s approval, the file for temporary advance amount was sent to the then DCFA Pankaj Garg, in-charge of the accounts branch in 2021-2022, for 42 tubewell works. It was the duty of the DCFA to verify all the documents before making final disbursement of advance payments but he didn’t raise any objections and misused his authority. It was also found that the DCFA, in collusion with the XEN and SE, passed the bills related to temporary advances and the amount was transferred in two MC bank accounts.
The spokesman said that Ranbir Singh got Rs 3.16 crore released on different dates through self cheques from MC accounts and misappropriated the funds in collusion with others. When the complaint was submitted to VB after three years, then XEN Ranbir Singh started depositing the amount in the MC account. He deposited Rs 3.12 crore from Jan 30, 2024 to March 21, 2024. According to MC records, Rs 4.3 lakh is still due.
A case was registered under section 13(1) and section 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act and under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register, etc), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC against SE Rajinder Singh, XEN Ranbir Singh and DCFA Pankaj Garg at the VB police station, Ludhiana Range.