By IT Correspondent
New Delhi, Sept 11:
An FIR has been filed with The Kotwali Police station in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, in connection with a fraud of Rs 6 lakh through two cloned cheques drawn in the name of the trust by unknown persons and the police are investigating the case.
The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust holds account number 39200235062 in the Naya Ghat branch of the State Bank of India. Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Dr Anil Mishra are the two authorised signatories for this account.
On 1 September, Rs 2,50,000 were transferred to a Punjab National Bank account through cheque number 740799. A week later, on 8 September, cheque number 740800 was used to transfer Rs 3,50,000 to the same PNB account. The fraud was detected when another cheque — number 740798 — for Rs 9,86,000 was presented to the Bank of Baroda on 9 September. But since the amount was much bigger, the bank called Champat Rai for verification. Rai browsed through the chequebook, and found the cheque bearing that number was still in his possession, so he files an FIR with the police.
The police have registered a case under sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 of the IPC on the charges of cheating, dishonesty, forgery and theft of important documents.
“We are currently conducting preliminary investigation in this case. Till now it has been revealed that some money has been fraudulently withdrawn from the Ram Mandir Trust’s account by presenting two cheques in PNB. We are trying to find out who did this and also scrutinising CCTV footage of the bank branch,” Circle Officer Rajesh Kumar Rai said.
An initial probe has suggested negligence of bank authorities, as well as the involvement of bank employees, as serial numbers of the cheques were compromised and that allowed fraudsters to prepare the cloned ones. The cloned cheques contained forged signatures of Rai and another member of the trust. We have a suspicion that this may be handiwork of a person who is quite close to the trust’s members, and might have had regular interactions with them. We are going through all possible angles of this forgery. A police team is probing the money trail to trace the fraudsters and people involved in compromising the trust bank account details to unearth the racket involved the crime, Kumar said.
Vishva Hindu Parishad’s regional spokesperson, Sharad Sharma, called the forgery a serious issue. Stern action must be taken against those involved in this cloning of cheques. The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has taken the issue seriously.
The trust was formed to oversee the construction of the temple after the Supreme Court in November last year paved the way for it and ended years of litigation.
In the meanwhile Champat Rai, said he was confident the culprits will be nabbed soon, and that the trust will be on the lookout for similar attempts in the future.
