Accused in Fake Govt Office row (img: File)

Updated on Feb 28, at 4 p.m.

The case of running six fake government offices was presented before the high court on Feb 27 during the hearing of the anticipatory bail plea of the accused, Vishvadeepsinh Gohil.

The High Court’s Justice JC Doshi rejected the plea, remarking that Gohil’s custodial interrogation is necessary for this case, as it has caused monetary damages to government funds.

Additional public prosecutor Asmita Patel described the case and its seriousness as several office bearers had misused their powers and fetched massive amounts.

The accused, Gohil, had no authority to pass or issue cheques. Despite this, he approved several government schemes, issued cheques, and made payments.

Justice Doshi remarked that in the proposals sent for 100 works, the accused was involved in 96 of them. He had issued cheques without any verification and carried out a fraud amounting to ₹18 cr. It is clear at first glance that the government has incurred major losses. This is a systematically designed and very well-planned economic offence.

Updated on Dec 20, 2023, at 4 p.m.

Exceeding all estimates, the bogus offices in Chhota Udepur have defrauded a staggering ₹21.15 cr, which is five times more than what was estimated, say police sources. They say that with three fresh arrests on Dec 19 the number of arrests in the case has gone up to 10.

Bogus grants worth ₹4.15 cr were sent only to the office of the executive engineer, irrigation project, division 2, in Bodeli.

Chhota Udepur police also obtained remands from Dahod police of the previously arrested former IAS and project administrator BD Ninama and mastermind Abubakar’s brother, Ejaz Saiyyed.

Operations of these fake government offices have been reported to have been underway since 2016, the year when former IAS Ninama took charge as the project administrator.

The third operative absconding in this case, VC Gamit, also surrendered to the magistrate court.

This brings the total number of arrests made in the case to 10, with seven accused previously held, including the prime accused - Abubakar Saiyyed, Sandeep Rajput, and Ankit Suthar, who were nabbed on Oct 27.

As per the police interrogation, Ejaz operated as the driver of Sandeep Rajput. Ejaz also operated Sandeep’s bank account.

The police has seized a total of ₹3.17 cr from the 24 bank accounts in this case. Alongside, ₹4 lakh cash has also been confiscated.

A police remand of four days has been approved for Ejaz in this case.

The fake offices of: 

1) Executive engineer, irrigation project division, Bodeli

2) Deputy executive engineer, sub-division - 10, Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board (GWSSB), Bodeli

3) Deputy executive engineer, sub-division, Gujarat irrigation water supply and canal department, Bodeli

4) Executive engineer, irrigation project department, division - 2, Bodeli

5) Deputy executive engineer, irrigation project, sub-division - 10, Bodeli

Updated on Nov 29, 2023, at 1.30 p.m.

Police has nabbed a retired IAS officer, BD Ninama, who was appointed as project administrator in the Dahod district administrative office, under whom at least 82 out of the total 100 grant requests were sanctioned from 2018–23, for which the cases have been registered. Most of these grants were allegedly sanctioned in a single day.

Further investigation into this case has also revealed that all the mentioned offices based in Dahod were illegitimate, and thus, establishing the chain of these sanctions is proving to be difficult. The police is also yet to find the channel through which the fraudulent money was laundered.

The prime accused in this case, Abubakar Saiyed, has also been shifted to a hospital following his deteriorating health condition.

Other developments also mention that the police remand of Ankit Suthar was transferred to Dahod police for 11 days from Chhotaudepur police, following which he will be thoroughly interrogated.

Updated on Nov 11, 2023, 2.20 p.m.

A scam bigger than the one in Chhotaudepur carried out by the accused, Sandeep Rajput, has been unearthed, in which the accused has allegedly set up six different government offices in Jhalod taluka of Dahod.

Rajput operated these makeshift offices of the executive engineer, one of them in Vadodara’s Dabhoi and five in Dahod’s Jhalod, and availed massive grants worth a hefty ₹18.59 cr.

This complaint has been registered against Rajput in the Dahod A division police station by Bhavesh Bamaniya, senior clerk, Dahod district administrative office.

Updated on Nov 3, 2023, at 1.20 p.m.

The accused, Sandeep Rajput and Abubakar Saiyed availed of a government grant worth ₹9.90 lakh over a check dam built ten years ago in Dahod district. Another such case was of the Chilarvant village of Chhotaudepur, where the perpetrators had merely applied plaster over a dam built in 2016–17 and had availed of heavy government grants.

Such was the modus operandi of the accused that they presented old check dams in tribal areas under government schemes and availed of grants worth ₹4.15 cr.

Another operative of the accused, Ankit Suthar, has also been nabbed by Chhotaudepur police for creating a fake identity card and forged documents for the duo in this case. Suthar also sent the proposals to the district administrative office.

Updated on Oct 28, 2023, at 4.15 p.m.

After several cases of individuals posing as fake government officials, a bizarre case of a fake government office has surfaced in Gujarat’s Chhotaudepur.

The fake office availed of grants worth crores of rupees during the tenure of its so-called functioning, the operations of which have finally ceased, and two from Vadodara were booked on Oct 27.

Fake government office in Bodeli

A bogus government office was set up in Chhotaudepur’s Bodeli, which functioned as the office of the area’s executive engineer for the irrigation project. The office was located near the Modasar intersection on Bodeli-Nasvadi road.

Government grants for projects to the tune of ₹4.15 cr were sanctioned and gained by this makeshift office.

Operations carried out by the office

The bogus office carried out correspondence with its district office, made proposals, and sanctioned the monetary transactions swiftly under the pretence of an official government office.

The police have arrested two people, Sandeep Rajput and Abubakar Saiyed, from Vadodara in the matter.

How was the bogus office uncovered?

A meeting was held at Chhotaudepur on Oct 25 for irrigation schemes under the Development Support Agency of Gujarat (DSAG) project.

District collector IAS Sachin Kumar chaired the meeting, which was also attended by Chhotaudepur District Panchayat executive engineer Preksha Goswami, Irrigation Project, Division 2 executive engineer Dhaval Patel, and project manager Vimal Damor.

In this meeting, proposals for 12 works of ‘Udavahan Sinchai Yojana’ under the Border Villages projects were discussed.

Upon discussion, executive engineer Dhaval Patel mentioned that no such proposals have been sent by his office. In fact, he did not have any such office in Bodeli.

Upon discovering this fake government office, the collector ordered an immediate inquiry about the projects handled by this Bodeli office.

The investigation revealed that a total of six proposals were received from 2021 till date.

The investigation further revealed that the bogus office submitted false proposals by presenting false signatures of the executive engineer, Irrigation Project, Bodeli, on official documents to obtain government grants from the grant administrator.

The scam, encircling the figure of ₹4.15 crore, consisted  of grants for a total of 93 works through cheques on different dates in two years.

How were the accused caught?

On the collector’s instructions, Javed Maknojia, a junior clerk at the administrative office of the district collectorate, registered a complaint at the Chhotaudepur police station.

Following this, the police made the arrests of Rajput and Saiyed in this case. The police FIR revealed that the former perpetrated as the bogus executive engineer at Bodeli, while Saiyed was his accomplice.

Police produced both of them in court and were granted a remand of 12 days for further inquiry.

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