Odisha job rip-off will get larger, investigators suspect 100 youths had been cheated – india information

The Tata Motors job rip-off which led to the arrest of former BJD MLA Pradeep Panigrahy appears to be getting larger with the Odisha CID estimating that a minimum of 100 youths in Ganjam district had been defrauded of something between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh for a job on the firm.

Final week, the CID had arrested former BJD minister Pradeep Panigrahy on a number of legal costs together with defrauding jobless youths of lakhs of rupees by promising them with jobs at Tata Motors. Per week earlier than that, vigilance officers had received the wind of the large job rip-off after they arrested Abhay Pathak, a 1987-batch Indian Forest Service officer and his son Akash Pathak, a 25-year-old mechanical engineering graduate from a non-public engineering faculty in Bhubaneswar on costs of amassing disproportionate property. Additional interrogations of the Pathak duo by the vigilance officers introduced out the extent of the job rip-off that the junior Pathak had hatched allegedly with Panigrahy.

CID sleuths who’re investigating the Tata Motors job rip-off mentioned the junior Pathak spun an online of lies from posing as managing director of Tata Motors ‘passenger division’ to handing out pretend becoming a member of letters to the youths for the posts of graduate engineer trainees in addition to administration trainees within the Tata Motors to creating pretend LinkedIn profile of himself.

His title made it to the police information after Tata Motors lodged a grievance with state CID in Might this yr about Akash posing as the corporate’s MD. Tata Motors adopted up with one other grievance in September. Nonetheless, there was little motion on that until the disproportionate asset case of his father blew up final month.

“He could have been a mediocre engineering graduate. However the sort of fraud he has perpetrated upon the youths is unbelievable. Whereas now we have seen individuals posing as IAS or IPS officers, that is the primary time now we have seen an engineering graduate posing as MD of a BSE-listed firm like Tata Motors. From our preliminary evaluation, now we have discovered that a minimum of 100 youths paid something between Rs 5 and 10 lakh for a job in Tata Motors. He’s nothing wanting Mr Natwarlal,” mentioned a senior CID officer who’s probing the case.

Officers mentioned with the assistance of Panigrahy in addition to his disgraced father, Akash Pathak began places of work of “Tata Motors” in Mumbai, Pune in addition to one from his father’s official quarters in Bhubaneswar. Other than floating ads on job portals for recruitment in Tata Motors passengers division, he carried out interviews of candidates on-line. He even appointed a private assistant to assist him out in airline bookings and answering his mails. He had additionally employed bouncers from Mumbai.

David Peter, who labored as his private assistant from November 2019, revealed how an individual in Ganjam used to coordinate the recruitment until Pathak himself took interviews by way of Zoom app through the Covid pandemic.

“Earlier than the pandemic, he used to make an inventory of job aspirants and name them up for a gathering on the workplace. The candidates who had been chosen for the submit of administration trainees had been promised annual CTC of Rs 11 lakh whereas the graduate engineering trainees Rs 6 lakh. For a second I by no means doubted that he was not MD of Tata Motors as he used to fly to Delhi, Mumbai and Pune and keep within the swankiest resorts of the nation,” Peter informed his CID throughout questioning.

Through the lockdown when common business flights weren’t allowed, Pathak alongside along with his father Abhay Pathak in addition to his potential father-in-law Panigrahy took 14 chartered flights to varied cities within the nation. He additionally stayed in star resorts a minimum of 15 instances this yr with room rents going past Rs 2.three lakh per day. Posing as Tata Motors MD, he even donated Rs 5 lakh to the Chief Minister’s reduction fund.

The Bhubaneswar police have lodged a case towards the Pathak father-son duo for not paying Rs 65 lakh to a city-based journey company that booked their chartered flights, 5 star resorts and air tickets. The company had billed them Rs 2.78 crore, however has thus far been paid Rs 2.13 crore. When the company requested them for the remainder of the cash, they had been threatened.

Vigilance officers who investigated the disproportionate property of Abhay Pathak, mentioned round Rs 17 crore was transacted by way of his son’s account over the previous yr and at one occasion money of Rs 1 crore was deposited by way of ATM. Investigators who’re nonetheless tying up the unfastened ends of the case say that Panigrahy’s cash in addition to the senior Pathak’s cash was being deposited in Akash Pathak’s account.

Whereas his can of worms are spilling out, officers mentioned Pathak remains to be adamant over his declare being Tata Motors MD. “He’s nonetheless claiming that he’s Tata Motors MD and may show it. He was simply an engineering graduate who couldn’t have even managed to turn out to be a senior engineer in Tata Motors in 2 years time. We could need to do his psycho-analysis,” mentioned an official.

The daddy and son duo who had been arrested on November 27, proceed to be in jail.