SPIPA deputy director arrested for ‘clearing 18 fake proposals’ in Gujarat bogus government office scam

He was arrested at 10 pm on Wednesday following “new evidence” that emerged during the ongoing investigation. Pandya had succeeded former IAS officer BD Ninama — a prime accused arrested in the case and currently in judicial custody — as the project administrator of Dahod district in April 2022, District Superintendent of Police Rajdeepsinh Zala told The Indian Express.

“Ninama had cleared 82 projects during his tenure… We filed a charge sheet, earlier this month, within the stipulated time against the 13 persons arrested previously. The charge sheet runs into 3,400-pages. However, the investigation is ongoing and we have made the first arrest after the chargesheet has been filed,” the officer added.

According to the police, Pandya was posted as the Project Administrator in Dahod until March 2023 and thereafter, joined SPIPA.

Ninama had allegedly cleared 82 proposals sent to siphon off Rs 18.6 crore from government grants between 2018 and 2023, investigations have shown. Of these, proposals to siphon off grants worth Rs 11.74 crore under tribal sub-plan schemes were sent by three of the six fake offices in 2020-21 itself. The police have also established that Ninama came in contact with co-accused Abu Bakr Saiyed first in 2016 during his posting in Chhota Udepur, where they experimented with setting up the bogus office.

Ninama has been arrested by the Chhota Udepur SIT in connection with a separate FIR lodged in the district.

In both districts, the accused ran bogus government offices with conman Sandeep Rajput posing as the executive engineer, while Abu Bakr and Ninama have been termed as the masterminds.

Similar to the charges invoked in the Chhota Udepur case against Rajput, Suthar and Saiyyed, the Dahod police has booked the accused under sections 170 (pretending to hold any particular office as public servant and act in such assumed character), 419 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of a valuable security), 468 (committing forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using a forged document as genuine), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal with intent to commit forgery), 474 (possession of forged documents shown as genuine) and 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

The Chhota Udepur SIT has also filed a 3,431-page charge sheet against the 11 accused arrested in the case lodged in the district.