Fake office, false signatures: Gujarat conman ‘receives’ government grants of Rs 4 crore since 2021, arrested

A conman in Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur district allegedly set up a bogus government office in Bodeli taluka of the tribal district, then posed as a government officer complete with forged signatures, government seals and official documents and availed of government grants worth more than Rs 4 crore.

The massive scam came to light on October 25, following which the conman, Sandeep Rajput, and his accomplice, Abu-Bakr Saiyyad, a government contractor, were arrested and remanded to 12 days in police custody late on Friday.

Rajput allegedly introduced himself as an executive engineer with the ‘Irrigation Project Division’ in Bodeli and used fake government seals and signatures to communicate with government departments, the FIR registered at Chhota Udepur police station states.

The money from the government allegedly came via e-payment, in multiple instalments, under the name of ‘Executive Engineer, Irrigation Project Division, Bodeli’. The bogus department, the FIR further states, was created under the “lenient eyes of former/current officers or employees of the department”.

Between July 26, 2021, and October 25, 2023, Rajput and Saiyyad extracted a total of Rs 4.16 crore as government grants for 93 projects, which were surprisingly approved by the office of the former project administrator of the district. The scam came to light on October 25 when the current project administrator questioned the bonafide officers of the irrigation department about 12 pending applications seeking a grant of over Rs 3 crore.

The FIR lodged on Thursday by Javid Ibrahim Mankojiya, a junior clerk of the project administrator’s office of Chhota Udepur district, states, “It appears to be a conspiracy hatched in connivance with the former and/or some current officers/employees of our department to extract financial benefit for personal interest while causing a loss to the state treasury…”.

The FIR goes on to say on October 25, at a meeting in the office of Project Administrator and IAS officer Sachin Kumar, with irrigation officers under the Development Support Agency of Gujarat (DSAG) project and in the presence of irrigation department Executive Engineer Preksha Goswami and Executive Engineer of Irrigation Project Division Dhaval Patel, the department realized that 12 applications had been made in 2023-24 for irrigation projects, seeking a grant of Rs 3.74 crore.

The FIR further adds that the department investigation revealed that government grants issued to the conman in the previous years – a total of Rs 1.98 crore for 40 works under various heads in year 2021-2022 included a Rs 59.90 lakh grant for 10 projects under the Gujarat Pattern Yojana as well as Rs 1 crore for 20 works under the scheme for women’s drinking water and a nucleus budget for 10 works of Rs 39.50 lakh.

These 40 projects worth Rs 1.98 crore were also approved by the former project administrator V C Gamit.

The FIR states that in 2022-2023, the bogus office received a total of Rs 2.19 crore grant for a total of 53 projects sent for approval, including 16 projects under the Gujarat Pattern Yojana worth Rs 40.66 lakh, an additional Rs 1.27 crore for 23 projects of the drinking water scheme, as well as Rs 51 lakh for 14 other projects under the nucleus budget. These proposals of the bogus irrigation officer were also approved by Gamit, the FIR states.

“We have registered the FIR based on the complaint filed by Javid Ibrahim of the project administrator’s office. As soon as we received the complaint, the superintendent of police directed the police to form various teams. We arrested Rajput within hours, who named Abu-Bakr as an accomplice. He is a government contractor, who appears to have come up with the idea of creating this bogus department to extract money. He was also arrested immediately. The court has granted us custody and we will begin investigating the transactions,” Investigating Officer Police Inspector Arun Parmar said.

The police are also investigating if the office was only created on paper or if it also accepted applications from residents. The accused have been booked under sections 170 (pretending to hold any particular office as public servant and act in such assumed character), 419 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of a valuable security), 468 (committing forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using a forged document as genuine), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal with intent to commit forgery), 474 (possession of forged documents shown as genuine) and 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.