CBI grills 2 senior IAS officers in UP Power EPF investment scam
Lucknow, May 10 (IANS) Almost two months after taking over the probe into alleged irregularities in investment of over Rs 4,300 crore Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd in the scam-hit Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has questioned two senior IAS officers in connection with case, source said on Sunday.
A CBI source related to the development told IANS that the agency has questioned senior IAS officers Alok Kumar and Aparna in connection with the case.
Kumar is a 1988 batch IAS officer and was then Chairman of the UP Power Corporation Ltd while Aparna was the then Managing Director.
The source said that both the senior officials were questioned on Saturday in Lucknow.
As between May 2017 to July 2019, Kumar invested over Rs 4,321 crore in several financial companies including DHFL, while Aparna invested over Rs 3,245 crore, the officials were asked about how the decision of investing EPF money in financial companies were taken and who approved it.
The CBI on March 9 this year registered an FIR involving a scam over “illegal investment” of employees’ provident fund. The PF money was allegedly invested in a private firm DHFL, currently facing money laundering charges by Enforcement Directorate.
The FIR was registered almost five months after the Yogi Adityanath government had sought a CBI probe into the Rs 2,268 crore Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) investment scam in the UPPCL.
The FIR was lodged against Pravin Kumar Gupta, former Secretary of the UP State Power Sector Employees’ Trust and Sudhanshu Dwivedi, former Director, Finance of UPPCL.
The CBI has booked the two officials under charges of breach of trust, cheating, forgery for cheating, and using forged document as genuine.
Following its investigation, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) had also indicted UPPPCL’s former Managing Director A.P. Mishra along with Gupta and Dwivedi for fraudulently dealing with a private firm.
The EOW, in its charge sheet, had stated that Mishra had forged signatures on dealings with private firms from 2016-17, which were against the norms, while Gupta and Dwivedi jointly took a decision to invest in DHFL against the norms.
The role of Dwivedi and Gupta was traced during a probe into seven shell companies.
The EOW, in its charge sheet, had also stated that Lalit Goyal, a chartered accountant, had arranged for the three arrested senior officials of UPPCL – Gupta, Dwivedi and Mishra – to withdraw Rs 12 crore from these accounts, revealing a plot hatched together by SMC and UPCCL to route money back to the officials.
–IANS
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