Pension allegedly withdrawn fraudulently
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, August 02 2020:
Retirement pensions of 17 employees of PWD including 14 who are still in service, two who had retired and one who had expired had been withdrawn fraudulently.
The pensions were withdrawn about three years back using forged signatures of PWD officers.
Driven by strong suspicions, the office of the Accountant General wrote a letter to the PWD to verify how the pensions entitled to the 17 employees were withdrawn.
Subsequently, PWD carried out an investigation and it was found that 15 of the employees were working in different divisions of the department while the other two retired only in February and April this year.
The 14 employees working in different PWD divisions and whose retirement pensions had been withdrawn on the false claim that they had expired are Jamkholien (Chowkidar, Churachandpur division), Lalngaihsai (Peon, Churachandpur division), Th Stone (Khalasi, Ukhrul Division), N Tuboy (Peon, National Highway Division-I, Ukhrul Division), W Swarnajit (UDC, National Highway Division-I, Ukhrul Division), Riyajuddin (Peon, Sadar Hills Division), K Chiru (Khalasi, Ukhrul Division), R Wungnaoreng (Driver, Ukhrul Division), Masoyo Vacca (Road Mohorrir, Ukhrul Division), Md Hafijuddin (UDC, Ukhrul Division), E Lukhoi (Road Mohorrir, Chandel Division), Th D Anjulis (Khalasi, Sadar Hills Division), DB Hillingjong (Khalasi, Chandel Division) and Z Livingstone (Khalasi, Ukhrul Division).
Their pensions were withdrawn on the false claim that they had expired.
Two others namely; S Ramthing (Road Mohorri, Ukhrul Division) and T Shangam (Head Clerk, Ukhrul Division) retired in April and February this year but their pensions had been withdrawn claiming that they had expired, sources said.
The 17th victim of this act fraudulence is one Khumlien (Sweeper, Churachandpur Division).
The termination order number mentioned in the pension application submitted in the name of Khumlien was found not matching with the date of issuing the order.
Moreover, documents attached with the pension application were not found in the records of the administrative department.
Fraudulent withdrawal of family pensions using forged documents together with a huge amount of money entitled to the employees at the time of retirement and payment of monthly salaries to the employees who are still alive drained a huge amount from the State exchequer.
It is highly possible that some officials of PWD, office of the AG, Treasury and Pension Cell were involved in withdrawing such a huge amount of money from the State exchequer fraudulently as Pension Paper Orders are issued by the office of the Accountant General before they are delivered to retired employees, said the sources.
Out of the 17 employees, names of some were modified or their spellings were made different from the original but all their Employee Identification Numbers (EIN) were found correct during the course of investigation carried out by PWD.
As for the department, their responsibility ends with submission of Pension Papers to the administrative department concerned.
After receiving Pension Papers from the department, the administrative department concerned would forward them to the Pension Cell which would finally submit them to the office of the Accountant General.
Copies of the Pension Orders would be sent back to the department.
The PPOs would be issued by the office of the Accountant General and they would be handed over to the retired employees but no copies (of the PPOs) would be provided to the department, said the sources.
Submission of pension paper would include photographs of the employees as well as their families.
As such, any anomaly or tampering can be detected easily.
Even though the case is now over one month old, no one has been pulled up or booked so far.
Nonetheless, in connection with a similar case, the Treasury Director had written to the authorities concerned to hold back monthly salaries of five employees, the sources added.
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