Two Rly employees in dock for fraudulently claiming educational allowances

Two Railway employees have been booked by the CBI on charges of fraudulently claiming educational allowances to the tune of Rs 42.24 lakh of 59 employees working on the Bengaluru-Salem section using forged documents.

The two employees are accused of conspiracy, corruption and other offences for claiming the money of other railway employees posted in Hosur, Dharmapuri and Salem in Tamil Nadu between 2013 and 2016.

Govindaraju, a junior clerk working in the office of senior  section engineer in Dharmapuri and P Basavaraju, who was a peon in Salem when the offence was committed and now working as goods guard in Bengaluru's Whitefield, were named along with unknown officials in  an FIR registered by the CBI.

According to the CBI, Govindaraju and Basavaraju "fraudulently and dishonestly fabricated false and forged bills towards education allowances, tuition fees and hostel subsidy in the names of various employees working in the Bengaluru-Salem section."

They "misappropriated" Railway funds to the tune of Rs 42.24 lakh. The FIR came following an investigation into information received at the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the CBI in Bengaluru.

It came to light that some of the educational institutions in whose names the bills were fabricated are "non-existent" and in certain cases, investigations showed that the students on whose name the allowance was claimed had "never studied" in the schools mentioned.

The duo also  reportedly raised the claim for allowances, ranging from Rs 16,600 to Rs 1.71 lakh, "without the consent and knowledge" of these 59 employees.

Later, the FIR said they processed the claims, sanctioned and disbursed it to these employees' accounts and "induced" them to withdraw it and hand it over to them.