Former PWD executive engineer, two staff held over Rs 73 lakh embezzlement in Jawhar

Police in Jawhar, Palghar district, claim to have busted a major irregularity in the Public Works Department (PWD). It is alleged that government funds of Rs 73,13,884 were siphoned off by tampering with bills for development works awarded to educated unemployed engineers, using forged papers.

The team of Sub-Divisional Police Officer Sameer Mehar arrested three people. They are the then executive engineer Rajendra Shaligram Pawar and staff members Ashok Malgavi and Eknath Wangad. The three were produced before a court in Jawhar, which remanded them in police custody for two days. The action has caused considerable stir in the PWD in Palghar district.

According to police, work orders for seven separate development works were sanctioned in 2014-15 in the names of local educated unemployed engineers, under agreement numbers 331, 332, 334 to 337 and 344, in the B-1 register of PWD Jawhar. However, when the bills for these works were paid on March 31, 2019, the original pages of the files were replaced, keeping the actual contractors in the dark.

It is alleged that whitener was applied at several places on the bills and entries in Form No. 47 were also tampered with. The name of a firm, "M/s Jijau Construction, Vikramgad", was put in place of the actual beneficiaries. The online cash book and the cash ledger were then also manipulated, and more than Rs 73 lakh was transferred directly to the account of Jijau Construction.

Police said the direct collusion of the then executive engineer Pawar and the staff in altering government records to draw money from the treasury came to light, and the arrests followed. Police are now also probing which other senior officers, accountants or middlemen of the PWD Thane circle were involved in the racket.

After the irregularity surfaced, MLA Harishchandra Bhoye had demanded that a special investigation team (SIT) be formed to probe the matter. Treating it as serious, Palghar Superintendent of Police Yatish Deshmukh had ordered a thorough investigation. When the inquiry showed that the money had been withdrawn, those concerned hurriedly deposited the amount back into the government treasury in the first week of September.

Following the Superintendent of Police's directions, a case of cheating was registered at Jawhar police station. The case also names Jijau Construction's proprietor Nilesh Sambare and the other partners. The court has granted them anticipatory bail.