Mumbai Crime: Versova society hit by Rs 3.87-crore fraud

The former officebearers and exmanager of a Versova housing society have been accused of siphoning off Rs 387 crore from maintenance and other collections over 6 years The police had earlier booked the manager following a court order but a recent probe by the Deputy Registrar Cooperative Societies found connivance by the previous managing committee including the chairman Sanjeev Enclave society on JP Road has 13 floors and 78 flatsThe embezzlement episode unfolded in 2016 after a flat owner spotted some discrepancies in the payment and deposits in the societyrsquos bank account While a new committee was appointed in February of that year the manager abruptly stopped reporting to work in November raising suspicion The new committee roped in two auditing firms to check their books from 2011 to 2015ldquoThe audit report given by both the firms was shocking as the manager allegedly didnrsquot deposit around Rs 2013 lakh from 2011 to November 2016 paid by residents towards maintenance and other dues The society filed a complaint at an Andheri court which directed the Versova police to register an FIR against manager Prakash Palavrdquo a resident told middayAlso read Vendor chops off Thane assistant municipal commissionerrsquos fingersThe resident said Sanjeev Enclave came up in 1994 and the society collected maintenance charges between Rs 4000 and Rs 5000 per flat during the period of scrutiny Members also paid additional charges for events and functions from time to time Following an FIR against Palav in 2018 the Deputy Registrar Cooperative Society ordered a reaudit which showed that Rs 764 lakh had been gobbled up in 201516 This prompted the authority to conduct a detailed inquiry in September 2020 under section 83 of Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act 1960Advocate Avdhoot Raorane who conducted the inquiry found massive discrepancies in the accounts He scrutinised 1127 vouchers 334 chequebook entries and other documents to find that the fraud was Rs 387 crore ldquoI called each and every person from the committee members all the employees working in the building and concluded that a massive fraud had happened in the society Many times cash given by residents as maintenance was not deposited in the bank repair works shown on paper never happened but vouchers and bills were generatedrdquo The previous committee had seven members and one of them has passed away said a residentFraud factoryThe report says that Palav and other officebearers were involved in the fraud Money which was spent to celebrate a festival in the society was released twice Lakhs of rupees were moved from banks on the pretext of putting them in fixed deposits but FDs were never created Fake signs of a watchman sweepers were used to withdraw money as salary Advocate Raorane also pointed out that a panel of auditors engaged by the then committee pushed all the illegalities under the carpet He said in the report that money must have been transferred to some other banks which needs to be investigatedBaseless chargesSA Qureshi who was the secretary from 2011 to 2016 said an inquiry is going on and the matter is in the court and the competent authority ldquoI would not like to comment on the proceedings or about anything as of nowrdquo Ashok Jain who was the chairman during that period said ldquoThe entire allegation against me and committee members is baseless The manager has done the fraud not us The new committee is trying to frame us Inquiry is going on and the truth will come outrdquoTrust brokenVijay Kumar Halan current chairman of the society told midday ldquoThis is not an easy task Who would like to prosecute people living in their own society but they have broken the trust of all members When we started the inquiry we found the previous committee had misplaced all the papers They used to demand cash instead of cheques or direct transfer Irsquove lived here for the past 21 years and I feel really bad as this happened all the while we were hererdquo As per rules authorities will first try to fix liability on the guilty before ordering criminal prosecution78No of flats in Sanjeev Enclave housing society