The police and the Treasury Department found Rs.19 lakh in the two bank accounts of M.R. Bijulal, the suspended senior accountant accused of transferring exchequer funds to his personal accounts.
(The fraud was detected after Bijulal transferred Rs.2 crore from the Thiruvananthapuram District Collector’s official account to his and his spouse’s personal accounts).
The Director of Treasuries wrote to the banks concerned seeking to freeze the cash parked in these accounts.
Initially, Bijulal transferred the Rs.2 crore to his own treasury account. Then, he transferred Rs.62 lakh from it to his wife’s account.
The government could recover Rs.1.38 crore from the treasury account of the accused as the officials quickly moved to freeze his treasury account. But the money transferred to his wife’s account would take some time to be recovered.
Sources said, of the remaining Rs. 62 lakh, only Rs.19 lakh could be found in the bank accounts. Recovering this would be relatively easy but the rest should be traced.
One of the bank accounts to which the cash has been transferred is in Thamaraserry. The initial effort was to cover up the scandal as the co-workers tried to coax Bijulal into depositing back the money he swindled.
Rummy addiction
Sources said Bijulal was ‘addicted’ to online Rummy, a high-stakes card game wherein the players could lose or earn money. Bijulal had lost many lakhs and he was desperately trying to regain lost cash by playing more. For this, he required money.
Sources said it was a vicious circle wherein the highly unlikely prospect of earning high returns drew people into the game even if they repeatedly lost high amounts.
Director’s order
The Treasuries Director, in the wake of the siphoning off of the money, ordered that the dormant and ‘orphan’ accounts across the state be frozen. The official directive said there could be attempts to swindle this money and hence the action.
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is also reassessing the banking software to find if there were potential loopholes like the one used by Bijulal which scamsters could similarly use.
Sources said if money was ‘diverted’ from ‘orphan’ accounts, there would not be any complaint and it would go unnoticed by the authorities.
The Centre deems these deposits in ‘public account’ as debt on part of the state government. The state government had recently decided to ‘recover’ these accounts as these ‘deposits’ were a drag on the ‘credit’ capabilities of the state. The Treasuries Director had asked all treasuries to report how many such accounts were with each of them and the total amount in these.
The state government would look at the records and the nominees for the accounts would be intimated to reclaim the money.
They would be asked to furnish the documents and the cash would be handed over after scrutiny. If there are no nominees, the money would go to the government.