India: Four navy officers booked for allegedly generating fake official bills of Rs6.76 crore (Dh3.3million) for personal monetary gain

Dubai: India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked four Indian Navy officials and 14 others for allegedly generating fake bills of Rs6.76 crore (Dh3,315,609) on the pretext of supplying Information Technology (IT) hardware to the Western Naval Command (WNC).

According to news reports that were shared by Indian Twitter users, Captain Atul Kulkarni, Commanders Mandar Godbole, and R. P. Sharma, and Petty Officer LOG (F&A) Kuldeep Singh Baghel were booked for allegedly preparing seven fraudulent bills amounting to Rs6.76 crore.

The CBI First Information Report (FIR) stated: "All these accused naval officers abused their official position to defraud the naval authorities and rob the exchequer of public money which led to pecuniary gain to themselves," according to Indian news reports.

Sharing the report, Twitter user @KNDodia2 tweeted: “These government officials have very good pay, and still they indulge in corrupt practices.”

And, @__bablu tweeted: “In a democracy, every individual and every institution should be questioned, no exceptions. This fixes the accountability.”

According to a report by Indian news agency, Press Trust of India (PTI), the bills were allegedly raised between January and March in 2016 at the Western Naval Command in Mumbai for the supply of information technology and networking related hardware. However, investigation revealed that none of the items mentioned in the bills were supplied to WNC headquarters. No documents pertaining to preparation of the bills i.e. approvals, financial sanction, purchase orders, receipt vouchers, etc. are available at HQ," according to the FIR.

The agency has also booked four officials of the Controller of Defense Accounts, besides private companies Star Network, ACME Networks, Cyberspace Infovision and Moksh Infosys, reportedly.