Son of former secy of PCL Employees’ Trust grilled

LUCKNOW UP Police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) on Tuesday questioned son of former secretary of UPPCL Employees’ Trust Praveen Kumar Gupta in connection with the UPPCL employees’ provident fund scam, said senior EOW officials. The officials said Gupta’s son Abhinav is suspected of playing the role of broker in investment of the PF amount in Mumbai-based Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL).

The officials, privy to the probe, said Abhinav was quizzed for several hours about the investment and was still in custody for further interrogation. Praveen Gupta is already in the jail in connection with this case.

Earlier, EOW officials found that addresses of 9 of total 14 investment brokerage firms – hired by UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) authorities for investment of employees’ provident fund – were fake.

These 14 firms were hired by

UPPCL authorities from March 2017 onwards for investment of employees’ PF in DHFL, said an EOW official.

However, only two investment brokerage firms were found to be genuine, added an official. The track record of 12 of these 14 firms revealed that they charged brokerage only for investment of UPPCL funds. Most of the suspicious firms had addresses of districts of western UP, Uttarakhand and Delhi, he added.

The official said the investment through brokerage firms was revealed during interrogation of former UPPCL managing director AP Mishra, director of finance Sudhanshu Dwivedi and Praveen Gupta, who were earlier taken into police custody remand by EOW. Dwivedi and Gupta were sent in judicial custody after their police custody ended on Saturday while Mishra was sent to jail after his police custody ended on Sunday morning.

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