Challan scam dogs Raibag tahsildar's office

Times of India: Belgaum: Tuesday, October 01, 2013.

A fake revenue challan receipt scam has surfaced in Raibag tahsildar's office. The district administration has ordered a probe into the scam exposed by RTI activist Bhimappa Gadad from Mudalagi in Gokak taluk.

When the tahsildar's office charges fees for its work like division of property, transfer of property rights, etc, the clerk in the office collects the fee and issues a challan for one third of the amount to the party. Of the remaining two challans, one is attached to the file and another is submitted to the bank along with the money.

The challan fee is collected but not deposited in the bank. Using duplicate seals of Syndicate Bank, officials created fake challan receipts. The fake receipts showed that money has been deposited in the bank when it was not. The government has been cheated of Rs 4 crore, Gadad claims. This way, they did fraud to the government to the tune of crores of rupees. RTI activist

Gadad has collected several such fake receipts in his possession. He then tallied the receipts with treasury documentsby availing them under the RTI Act.

Gadad claims that this scam has been going on since the past seven years and revenue officials including assistant commissioners and tahasildars are allegedly involved. He also accused audit officials of being part of the fraud as they had failed to match the challan receipts along with the deposited amount in treasury office. "I decided to expose scam, when people told me that, officials charge less money than mentioned in the challan" he said.

Gadad suspected that, such fraud might have been taking place where the same officials transferred, and demanded thorough inquiry. He disclosed several political heavyweights and agents contacted him for the outside settlement and threatened when he disagreed.

"I have sent all the detail to the CM's office and the department concerned." he said.

When TOI spoke to Chikkodi assistant commissioner Rudresh Ghali he confirmed the fraud. "There has been some kind of fraud between 2006 and 2012. A probe has been ordered so far fraud to the tune of Rs 14 lakh has come to the light," he said. Ghali said that the scam took place before he assumed charge as Chikkodi AC.