Hyderabad: A routine update to a govt bank account mandate in Suryapet has snowballed into a criminal case, with a private bank manager accused of forging the signature of district collector Tejas Nandlal Pawar on official documents linked to the District Mineral Foundation Trust (DMFT).The alleged forgery surfaced during scrutiny of account records, prompting the collector to lodge a complaint that led to the bank official’s arrest and remand. Chivemula police in Suryapet district registered the criminal case against the private bank manager for allegedly forging the signature of Pawar.Koduru Raghu, who is the Suryapet branch manager of the private bank, is alleged to have forged the collector’s signature. According to the complaint filed by the collector, the DMFT account requires the joint signatures of the collector and the district rural development officer (DRDO) for any transaction or change in the account mandate.“Following the transfer of the then DRDO D Shirisha, it became necessary to update the authorised signatory in the bank records by deleting her name and adding the newly-posted DRDO, Rayapalli Sanyasaiah, as the authorised signatory. Accordingly, banking documents were prepared on Aug 4 in respect of the said DMFT bank account, for which the signatures of the collector and the DRDO concerned were required,” the collector said in his complaint.The alleged fraud came to light on Aug 14 when DMFT section accountant K Gopi Reddy noticed irregularities in the signature purportedly belonging to the collector and raised an alert.Subsequent inquiries revealed that Raghu had approached staff at the collectorate seeking the official seal on the documents. “When staff questioned the authenticity of the signature, Raghu lied to them it was genuine and made them affix the official seal on the documents,” Chivemula sub-inspector V Maheshwar said.After personally verifying the documents, the collector concluded that the signature had been forged. An internal inquiry also found that when Sanyasaiah signed the form, the collector’s signature was not present on it.Based on the collector’s complaint, police registered a case under sections 318(4) (cheating), 336(3) (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.) and 340(2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.“The accused has been arrested and remanded in judicial custody on Aug 16. The exact purpose of the forgery is yet to be determined. We will seek police remand of the accused banker to find out the reason for forgery,” the SI said.
