Two retired inspectors get five years’ jail in wheat scam

Tribune News Service

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, March 22

Two retired officials of the food and supplies department have been sentenced to five years each in a wheat scam that took place in the department’s Hansi office in 2014. The convicts have been identified as Jaswant Singh and Vipin Kumar.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Nishant Sharma also imposed a fine of Rs10 thousand each on them. The Hansi police station had registered the case of the scam in May 2014 against inspectors Jaswant Singh, Vipin Kumar and Mahender Singh on the statement of District Food and Supplies Controller Dr Ghanshyam. Mahender had committed suicide.

In May 2014, a major scam of embezzlement of grains from three godowns of the department was detected in Hansi. The alleged fraud came to light when a team from the Chandigarh headquarters visited to inspect the godown after they received a report that thousands of quintals of wheat had gone bad there. The police had booked the three under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) on May 30.

The then principal secretary of the department, TVSN Prasad set up a committee to investigate the matter. It was found that the wheat scam incurred a loss of about Rs 11.50 crore to the state exchequer.

The sources said the food and supplies department also started recovery of the amount from the three inspectors booked in the case. Later, Mahender committed suicide.

Initially, the losses were pegged at around Rs 3.5 crore. The departmental committee later reported that the missing and damaged wheat stock was worth Rs 9.85 crore while another Rs 1.65 crore were lost on account of missing and damaged stock articles in the godowns. The reports had suggested that about 30,676 quintals of wheat worth Rs 6.75 crores was found missing in the godowns.

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