The CBI has initiated a probe against three officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation after they allegedly siphoned off over Rs 2.71 crore using the Aadhaar details of migrant workers.
CBI officials working along with police authorities.
The CBI has initiated a probe against three officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has lodged a case against three officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for allegedly committing a fraud of over Rs 2.71 crore using the Aadhaar details of migrant workers, sources told India Today.
Based on a complaint lodged by the Vigilance Department of EPFO, the CBI has initiated a probe against Chandan Kumar Sinha (Senior Social Security Assistant, Kandivali Regional Office EPFO Mumbai), Uttam Tagaray (Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu), and Vijay Jarpe (Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner, Chennai Regional Office, Tamil Nadu), sources told India Today.
According to the complaint, Chandan Kumar Sinha, along with the two others, made 91 forged claim settlements from the outbreak of coronavirus in March 2020 till June 2021.
During the said period, when the country was mostly under a Covid-induced lockdown, the EPFO had relaxed the rules for pension withdrawals to help people deal with business shutdowns and job losses.
Sources said that these officials, who were aware of the loopholes in the system, used Aadhaar details of migrant workers, showed them as employees of a Mumbai-based out-of-work company and then withdrew Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh as provident fund against their names.
It is suspected that in a period of 15 months, the officials allegedly made 91 fraud claims and withdrew over Rs 2.71 crore.
The CBI suspects that over 800 forged settlements were made during the pandemic across the country using similar method.