Accused Balwinder and Surjit Singh were remanded for three days and one day in police custody, respectively.
Two persons, including a former in-charge of the Salary branch and a home guard volunteer with the UT Police department, were arrested in connection with Rs 1.01 crore salary scam in the Chandigarh Police, which came to light in February 2020. They were identified as Junior Assistant Balwinder Kumar, former in-charge of UT Police Salary branch, and volunteer Surjit Singh.
Kumar had joined the UT Police as a constable, but later merged into the clerical staff.
Accused Balwinder Kumar and Surjit Singh were remanded for three days and one day in police custody, respectively. The scam is being probed by SP (Crime) Manoj Kumar Meena.
Sources said, “Accused Balwinder Kumar, along with his associates, took advantage of the many loopholes in the E-Sevaarth portal of the National Informatic Centre. Most of the government departments issue the salaries of their employees through this portal. The UT Police crime branch has reportedly apprised the NIC officers about these loopholes, which were resolved. The possibility of a similar scam in other departments cannot be ruled out.”
SP (Crime) Manoj Kumar Meena said, “A special audit from the side of the CAG established the total loss to the state exchequer to over Rs 1.01 crore. The excess salary was transferred to the salary account of at least 161 police personnel. We managed to recover almost Rs 90 lakh out of Rs 1.01 crore from the accounts of the beneficial cops. So far, 64 police personnel of the rank of constables, head constables (HC) and a few ASIs are under the scanner for their connivance with Balwinder Kumar. Volunteer Surjit Singh was attached with Balwinder. He played the role of a liaison conduit between Balwinder and the personnel who benefitted.
The scam was detected when 40 salary accounts of the police personnel were found to have credited huge money with fake entries of inflated conveyance allowances and ration/food allowances, TA/DA, allowances for other things in February 2020. A fact-finding probe had indicted six police personnel, including Balwinder Kumar, who was then posted as the in-charge of the Salary branch.
The others include Head Constable Mukesh Kumar, Yogender, Ved Parkash, constable Rajbir, Jatinder and one woman constable Usha Devi. They were also attached to the salary branch. Subsequently, an FIR under charges of forgery, embezzlement and Prevention of Corruption Act (PC) Act, 1988, was lodged at the Sector 3 Police Station.
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