By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: In sequel to two earlier arrests, Economic Offences Wing arrested accused dealer of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd. namely Chandan Sahoo, Proprietor of CS Technologies from Bhubaneswar on 12.04.2022 in connection with EOW PS Case No.08 dt.02.04.2022 U/s 420/467/ 468/ 471/ 120B IPC r.w. Sec. 66 of IT Act, 2000 and is being forwarded to the Court of SDJM, Jagatsinghpur today i.e. on 13.04.2022.
The above case has been registered on the basis of a complaint/ Enquiry report submitted by Dy.S.P, A.K. Mishra of EOW, Bhubaneswar, who in course of his investigation in a similar case in EOW PS Case No.07 of 2021 came to know about the commission of another similar embezzlement by the present accused in conspiracy with others in misappropriating the Govt. subsidy meant for the farmers/beneficiaries amounting to Rs.6.81 crores approx. by manufacturing and using forged documents/email id, UTR etc.
Investigation of the case conducted so far has revealed that the arrested accused, Chandan Sahoo, Proprietor of CS Technologies was working as a dealer of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd., having its office at Purohitpur, Taradapada, Jagatsinghpur. The said firm is registered with the Agriculture Department of Govt. of Odisha under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme as a manufacturing firm/company of Agro implements like Transplanter machines etc. During the financial year 2018-2019 & 2019-2020, Manas Ranjan Dash, Director of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd., in active connivance with its eight dealers including the present accused, Proprietor of CS Technologies has uploaded a series of false/fake invoices/ data/ information in respect of supply/ sale of 504 Transplanters to equal number of farmers/ beneficiaries belonging to 19 districts of Odisha including Puri,
Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Balasore, Khordha, Kalahandi and Sambalpur and managed to avail subsidy amount of Rs.6,81,53,048/- under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme, which was disbursed in the bank accounts of concerned beneficiaries/farmers by the Agriculture Department and misappropriated the same.
It has also been ascertained that out of above mentioned total 504 transplanter machines of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd, during the FY 2018-2020, 31 Transplanters are shown to have been sold through its dealer M/s CS Technologies, the Proprietor of which is accused Chandan Sahoo and received the subsidy amount against those false sales by uploading fake invoices/data/information and UTR in the DBT Portal and misappropriated the subsidy amount. In the entire process actual machine/ transplanter was not manufactured nor sold but subsidy was availed by the beneficiaries. The accused has shown false sale of 31 transplanters in the name of different farmers/beneficiaries of Puri District.
It has also been ascertained that before the subsidy amount was being credited to the account of beneficiary/ farmer, accused Chandan Sahoo used to lure the beneficiary and was collecting the advance cheque to withdraw the total subsidy amount. He took away major subsidy amount from them by paying some amounts/ cuts to the concerned farmer/ beneficiary. During investigation, one DELL Laptop of the accused that was used in uploading many incriminating documents like the details of farmers/beneficiaries, fake invoices, fake UTR etc. in DBT Portal of Odisha Govt. has been seized. The investigation of the case is on.
