Pune: Director-CA dupes BPA Technology Pvt Ltd of Rs 1.74 crore
Pune: A director-CA cheated his own firm of Rs 1.74 crore. The incident took place at BPA Technology Pvt Ltd, which runs under Nihilent Ltd at Weikfield Infopark in Viman Nagar.
The director misused his position and prepared a fake and false statement of State Bank of India. Then he submitted the statement as genuine to the Auditor and withdrew Rs 1,74,24,368. Thus, he committed financial fraud by transferring the money to his own and his wife’s bank accounts. An offence has been registered in this regard at the Yerwada Police Station.
The accused have been identified as CA Akash Umesh Pande and Smriti Akash Pande, both residents of Lohegaon. Avijeet Dulalchandra Karmakar (49), residents of Wagholi, lodged a complaint. Akash Pande was a director in BPA Technology Pvt Ltd between June 1, 2018 and March 12, 2022. The complainant is also a company director. BPA Technology Pvt Ltd’s head office is in Kolkata. The company provides IT services such as business consulting, data analytics, software consulting, etc.
Accused Akash Pande and Nirmalya Dutta, resident of Kolkata, were company directors from 2019. But the company did not start operating from April 1, 2019. In fact, it has not started operating till date. But some transactions of the company are conducted from its Viman Nagar office. Nirmalya Dutta resigned from his position in 2021. The complainant was appointed as a director on December 2, 2021. Since then Pande and the complainant were the two directors.
Though the company has not been in operation, its annual auditing was done by Bipin Bora & Associates since its foundation. Pande used to submit documents for auditing. Pande had the responsibility to prepare monthly MIS, to assist in completing month-end book closure and MIS, annual AOP and to audit for BPA India and group units. He also used to supervise financial operations and to pass transactional details in company ledgers. He was also appointed as an authorized signatory at the Chennai branch of the State Bank of India. Pande alone was handling this bank account.
Meanwhile, Pande’s wife called up the complainant on November 5, 2023. She told him that her husband was detained by the police in a cyber fraud and would not attend office for some days. The complainant immediately communicated this to Nihilent Ltd. Pande’s mobile phone was switched off during this period. He was arrested for task fraud and crypto currency trading scam. The company sought a clarification from him in this connection. He was told not to report on duty. Pande did not reply to this.
The company got suspicious of his dealings and enquired about account balance at the Chennai branch. No reply was received. A company employee was sent to Chennai. He procured the bank statement, which showed ‘zero’ balance amount. The statement was checked thoroughly and it was found that illegal withdrawals were done. It was found that Pande and his wife transferred company’s money to their companies, personal and partnership firms’ accounts such as M/s Green Aeroes, M/s Meadows Ink and M/s Neighbourhoods. In total, they defrauded the company of Rs1,74,24,368.
All annual audit reports prepared by Bipin Bora & Associates were also checked. The accused took advantage of Covid-19 when the company offices were closed and withdrew money for his personal benefit. He used a fake logo of State Bank of India and showed a false and fake outstanding balance.
