Maharashtra official among 5 booked for duping jobless youth

Thane: A case has been registered against five persons, including a PWD official posted at the state secretariat in Thane, his wife and son, for allegedly duping over a dozen job aspirants to the tune of Rs 55 lakh, police said on Thursday.

The accused have been identified as Madhav D Palladwar, secretary at Public Works Department at Mantralaya here, his wife Sheela, son Sameer (residents of Bandra), and two middlemen -- Prakash Pathak from Pen in Raigad district and Prakash Raje, they said.

The offence was registered based a complaint filed by one of the victims, Rajkumar Chavan.

According to a police officer, the complainant came in contact with Pathak, who promised a job to him in the state Public Works Department (PWD) through Palladwar.

"Similarly, they cheated several others on the false promise of jobs in the department. Palladwar used to demand Rs 5 lakh from each job-aspiring youth for different posts in the PWD. The money used to be collected either by Raje or Pathak. Sometimes, Palladwar himself used to collect the money or ask the victims to deposit it with his wife or son," police said.

Between May 2007 and 2011, the five accused collected money from over a dozen job-aspiring persons, police said.

"To substantiate their claim about vacancies in the PWD, the accused used to show fake correspondence between various departments including the general administration department (GAD), State Election Commission, MPSC, Directorate of Health Services, and also Chief Minister's Office (CMO)," police said.

Some of the victims even borrowed money from others to pay to the accused, they said.

Offences were registered last night against the accused at Nizampura police station under Bhiwandi division.

They were booked under IPC sections 406 (breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), among others.

Nobody has been arrested so far in this connection and further investigation into the case is on.