Beauty pageant winner main accused in ₹2.26-cr Ajmer discom forgery case
Initial investigation by Discom’s Ajmer circle indicates that the accused Annapurna Sain fraudulently added account numbers of her relatives in the salary sheets of discom employees and subsequently transferred money into those bank accounts.
Annapurna Sain, an assistant administrative officer in Ajmer Discom and the alleged mastermind behind the siphoning off ₹2.28 crore by forging salary sheets ofdiscom employees, had transferred the money in accounts of 65 people of the same bank, police investigation has revealed. Sain is currently on the run.
Ajmer’s Christianganj police station SHO Likhma Ram said that till now, police have identified five account holders in the case. “After checking the balance sheets and financial documents, it was found that the money was transferred in the account of 65 persons. The authorities of Discom have written a letter to the concerned bank requesting to share the details like address and phone numbers of account holders in which the money was transferred,” Ram said.
The five account holders have been identified as Rohit Bawle, resident of Indore district in Madhya Pradesh; Mahendra Nath and Devkaran Gurjar, both residents of Rajsamand district; Virendra Sain and Naresh Kumar.
Virendra and Naresh — who are Annapurna’s father and uncle respectively — were arrested on Sunday night. Sain deposited ₹55,51,773 in the accounts of her relatives.
According to the Christianganj police, ₹52,78,447 were deposited in the account of Virendra and ₹2,73,336 in the account of Naresh. The police are also trying to find out whether the two relatives of Annapurna have other bank accounts.
The initial investigation by Discom’s Ajmer circle indicates that she fraudulently added account numbers of her relatives in the salary sheets and subsequently transferred money into those bank accounts. Virendra and Naresh were booked for being party to a criminal conspiracy. On Monday, both were presented before a court in Ajmer, which sent them to judicial custody.
A native of Ajmer, Sain had participated in a beauty pageant in Mumbai in 2017, where she was adjudged as Mrs Rajasthan. She also runs a beauty salon in Ajmer district. She had contested elections for the Discom workers society for the post of director and had won it. Annapurna has not come to the office ever since the matter came to light. She fled Ajmer on November 16 after taking leave from the office on heath grounds. She was suspended in December.
Initially, Annapurna had joined the department as a cashier and was recently promoted to the level of assistant administrative officer. A case was registered against her under section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) in December.