FIRs registered

IMPHAL, Aug 7: Two separate FIRs have been registered at City PS and Lamphel PS in connection with the fraudulent withdrawal of retirement pensions of 17 employees of PWD and 11 employees of Water Resources Department (WRD).
Sources informed that an FIR was lodged at City Police on Wednesday against withdrawal of family pensions and gratuity amounts entitled to 17 employees of PWD who are still in service by submitting forged documents. 
However, City Police registered the FIR only today as their personnel were busy testing themselves for COVID-19 and they were occupied in other COVID-19 related works. PWD has also started lodging similar FIRs at police stations which are closest to its divisions concerned. Even though family pensions and gratuity amounts were withdrawn, leave encashment and GPF amounts  were not withdrawn as any process to withdraw these amounts would come to the notice of the Executive Engineers very easily, said the sources. Though pension paper order has been issued, due authorisation certificate should be obtained from the DDO/EE concerned before the pension is paid out.
Had the pension paper order reached the department, the act of fraudulence could have been detected immediately. Moreover, signature of the particular DDO/EE is with the Treasury Office. Officials concerned must check whether the signature of DDO/EE appended on the forged documents match with the original signature available at the Treasury office. As such, there is a strong suspicion that some officials of the office of Accountant General, Pension Cell and Treasury Office committed serious mistakes or deliberately cleared the forged documents, said the sources adding that the truth would come out in the course of the police investigation. Meanwhile, both PWD and WRD have sent reports to the office of the Accountant General regarding fraudulent withdrawal of pension and gratuity amounts of some in-service employees without any knowledge of the particular employees, added the sources.