CBI registers case against EPFO employees for siphoning off Rs. 2.71 crores
New Delhi, September 11
The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) registered a case of corruption and cheating against three Employees' Provident Fund Organisation officials for allegedly stealing Rs 2.71 crores.
The key conspirator in the case has been identified as Chandan Kumar Sinha, a senior social security assistance in the Kandivali regional EPFO office.
Two assistance provident fund commissioners- Uttam Tagaray and Vijay Jarpe of the Coimbatore and Chennai regional EPFO offices have also been charged.
As per the case details, the incident occurred when the pension fund organisation eased rules regarding EPF withdrawals in lights of job losses due to the COVID lockdown.
The CBI had received a complaint from the Vigilance Department of the Employees' Provident Fund Organization after an anonymous person tipped them off about the scam.
After an internal audit check, the department realised that crores of rupees had been siphoned off the fund by manipulating the system.
The CBI found bank credit receipts of over Rs. 30.36 lakhs in account of Sinha as against his salary receipt of Rs. 12.90 lakhs between April 2019 to July 2021 indicating accumulating disproportionate assets.
The accused were aware that only withdrawals above Rs 5 lakh were flagged by the departments and therefore only made claims in the range of Rs 2-3.5 lakh.
The officials added that the modus operandi of this racket involved creating bogus PF accounts using bank account and Aadhaar collected from migrant workers and poor people for which they paid a small 'commission'. They then portrayed them as employees of companies shut down by the pandemic and withdrew the amount by filing fake claims.
