Conmen use ad to dupe people, CBI lodges case

New Delhi: The CBI has lodged a case against unknown persons for allegedly taking out an advertisement in a national daily regarding recruitment in the ministry of rural development with the intention of cheating innocent people. The accused promised as many as three hundred vacancies in the ministry in different posts. They had asked the applicants to pay around Rs 500 as fee for applying to the posts. When the ministry came to know about such an advertisement, it conducted an inquiry and later lodged a case with the CBI. 

A CBI source said that Anant Prakash Pandey, the director of the department of rural development at the ministry of rural development, complained in this respect following which a case was registered.

 The source said that the ministry conducted an enquiry and found that some conmen were trying to dupe innocent people by luring them into applying for jobs at the ministry of rural development.

“Someone named Tanay Srivastava wrote an email to Prashant Kumar, the joint secretary at the department of rural development in the ministry of rural development, regarding an advertisement for recruitment in Rural Development Organisation (RDO) in a national daily in Bhopal. 

The ministry said that they did not give any advertisement in any newspaper. They also told the CBI that there was no such organisation named RDO under the government of India,” the police source said. 

The source further said that as per inquiry it was later learnt that the RDO was an approved charity organised by the ministry of home affairs of the government of India under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976. 

The probe agency had   found that the authenticity of the advertisement was highly doubtful as it had showed more than three hundred vacancies for three different posts.

“It was quite a surprise that the applicants were promised same salary for all the posts although with different educational qualification. The conman were also charging around Rs 500 from each applicant to apply for the posts.

The applicant had to make a DD for the said amount in favour of RDO payable at Kolkata while aspirants were asked to send the applications to the manager of RDO in Varanasi,” the source said. The source added that a case under relevant sections of IPC and IT has been lodged. Further probe in the matter is on.