Bhubaneswar, Aug 27 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday arrested in Odisha an absconding former postal official linked to a Rs 13.98 lakh fraud involving money saved by depositors in post offices, an official said.
Shabda Swain, the then Branch Post Master at Odisha’s Bonda was taken into custody from Bargarh (Odisha) for alleged involvement in the post office savings fraud case dating back to 2015, the CBI said in a statement.
The accused during her posting as Branch Post Master of Bonda Post Office during the period 2008 to 2014, misappropriated Rs 13.98 lakh collected from depositors by not accounting the deposits in the official records by making false entries in the passbooks.
The accused was absconding since framing of charges on December 31, 2015, in the CBI’s ACB filed by Bhubaneswar Branch in a regular case.
Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) against her was issued in 2022.
After sustained and persistent efforts by CBI, she has been apprehended while she came to attend a family function at Bargarh in Odisha. She was produced before the competent court in Bhubaneswar after arrest.
In a separate case, a Special CBI Court sentenced a former bank branch manager to five-year sentence in a bribe case.
The case was registered by the CBI on March 12, 2018, against Rakesh Chandra Thakur, the then Branch Manager of Baroda UP Gramin Bank’s Hariharpur Branch in Sultanpur.
A complainant alleged that Thakur demanded an illegal gratification of Rs 6,000 from the complainant for disbursing the first instalment of his Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loan of Rs 4.25 lakh, the CBI said.
The central probe agency laid a trap and caught the accused Thakur red-handed while demanding and accepting an illegal gratification of Rs 6,000 from the complainant.
After completion of investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet on May 10, 2018, and charges were framed on December 21, 2020, against Thakur.
On August 25, Special CBI Judge of Anti-Corruption Court in Lucknow sentenced Thakur to a rigorous imprisonment for five years with a fine of Rs 25,000, a statement said.
–IANS
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