Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Mastermind arrested

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, OCT. 15. The Coimbatore Rural police today made a significant breakthrough in the Rs. 70-lakh Tirupur Regional Transport Office fake receipt scam by arresting a "prime accused" Jani alias Janardhanam.

According to police, the kingpin in the mega scam with the assistance of three others had reportedly defrauded the RTO at Tirupur by way of issuing fake receipts in registration, life tax remittance and in the fee for allotment of fancy registration numbers.

Internal audit

The scam came to light when the Tirupur RTO, Rodrigues detected the fraud in an internal audit. The preliminary probe unearthed scam to the tune of Rs. 76,790. He preferred a complaint with the District Crime Branch Police in September.

The Superintendent of Police, Coimbatore Rural District, R. Dhinakaran, constituted special teams for conducting a detailed enquiry.

The State Government also deputed a team of officials from the Audit wing to scrutinise the records to ascertain the extent of fraud. Even as the probe was progressing following prima facie evidence, the police registered a case against Janardhanam, Swaminathan, Kumar and Palanisamy under sections 468 (forging a document), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and under section 420 (cheating) and 120 B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The highlight of the entire scam came to light, when the officials detected that the kingpin in the scam, Janardhanan had fabricated a Government order allotting a fancy number for a cargo vehicle.

Fake receipts

Further probe led to the revelation that the agency run by the accused was involved in fabrication of such fake receipts for the last few years and had defrauded the RTO by getting at least 2000 vehicles registered with fake receipts denying the revenue due for the Transport Department which was estimated to be more than Rs 70 lakhs.

The Inspector-General of Police, A. Subramanian and DIG of Police, Coimbatore Range, Ashutosh Shukla have ordered constitution of special teams to nab the remaining three accused.

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