NEW DELHI, Aug 26: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today registered 10 FIRs in Rs 1,000-crore Srijan scam case of Bihar, involving an NGO and Government officials.
It is said several political leaders might also come under the scanner in the scam. The RLSP and the JD(U) have already suspended one leader each after their names surfaced in the scam.
The premier investigating agency took over the probe into the scam, claiming that Government funds were allegedly diverted illegally to the account of Srijan NGO in Bhagalpur between 2003 and 2017 in connivance with the bank officials.
The case was earlier being investigated by the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of the Bihar Police, but it was referred to the CBI by Chief Minister Nitish Kymar on August 18 after Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad leveled damaging charges against Mr Kumar, accusing him of a “foul play” in delaying CBI investigation and “destroying” all the evidence.
The FIRs have been registered against Manorama Devi (now dead), Director of Srijan Mahila Vikash Samiti (the NGO), present and former officials of several banks including — Bank of Baroda, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Bhagalpur Central Cooperative Bank, Indian Bank at Bhagalpur and Saharsa districts apart from unknown officials of Srijan and others.
The Bhagalpur NGO has been accused of directly stealing funds from the Bhagalpur administration’s accounts for various welfare schemes. It is also alleged that even bank officials are involved in it.
As per the primary information, the scam was carried out through direct deposit of Government funds into the accounts of the NGO, either through fake third-party endorsements or via forged cheques.
By doing so, Srijan got huge amount which was used to give loans to private parties at a high interest rate to earn good profit out of it. The earned amount of interest was being for the personal uses by NGO Srijan’s office bearers and for distribution among some bureaucrats and politicians.
It is alleged that during the tenure of District Magistrate Virendra Yadav in 2014-15, an amount of Rs 285 crore of Government cheques were deposited or transferred in the NGO’s account in connivance with administrative and bank officials.
After demonetisation, a good amount of cash of Srijan could not get converted in new currency, starting the trouble for both Srijan and the officials as it failed to deposit back the amount in August 2017, for which administration had issued the cheques which bounced due to insufficient balance.
In fact, the Government cheque for Rs 270 crore bounced which was meant to be paid to farmers in lieu of their land for a power plant. An internal inquiry was conducted and the District Magistrate discovered that the Government account did not have enough funds.
Further investigation revealed that whenever a Government cheque was deposited at one of the two banks involved in the scam, Indian Bank’s Patal Babu Road branch and Bank of Baroda’s Ghanta Ghar branch, a bank employee or a clerk would inform Manorama Devi. The NGO would then deposit the same amount into the Government account that it does not bounce. (UNI)
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