Mumbai: Jet Airways PF scam goes back to 2007, says EPFO insider

The seed of the multicrore PF scam was sown in 200708 as the then Compliance Department of the Employeesrsquo Provident Fund Organisation EPFO at Kandivlimdashheaded by Sudhir Ganvir who is now the Regional PF Commissioner at the same officemdashhad allegedly covered up the short remittances made for various PF accounts from 2003 and 2006 by the grounded Jet Airways Above all the Internal Audit Party had mentioned in 2009 that Jet Airways seems to be in a habit of delaying dues but no action was taken by the Compliance DepartmentThe loot was on in connivance with the corrupt EPFO officials and Jet Airways top executives for over a decade But it was never exposed as the suppression of the scam was a winwin situation for both But the end beneficiaries were deprived of their PF amounts due to the short remittancesrdquo said a sourceFirst noticed in 200708Short remittances of PF dues which were over Rs 355 crore were noticed by the accounts department that had written a letter to the Manager of Jet Airways to submit their bank statement within a week ldquobut the establishment gave no responserdquo a senior EPFO employee told middayThe EPFO letter on December 11 2007 to Jet Airways reads lsquoThe ICICI Bank statement submitted by you for the year 200506 and the payments shown in 12A do not match You are requested to submit the bank statement of only State Bank of India for the year 200304 200405 and 200506 within a weekrsquos time so as to know the actual payment made by the establishment as per the dues for the year 200506 only Also you are requested to make payment in our jurisdiction in SBIrsquoAfter receiving no response within the stipulated time from Jet Airways the EPFO accounts department wrote a letter to the Assistant PF Commissioner Compliance on February 4 2008 to depute a squad of Enforcement Officers EOs for verification of payments made by Jet Airways for the period 20032006ldquoGanvir deployed a squad of two EOs KS Karkera and JR Gimhanekar who made visits on April 7 May 14 and May 23 in 2008 in connection with the verification of payment position made by the establishment for the periods 20022003 to 20072008 But on verification of the Demand Collection Balance Register DCBR it was observed that most of the remittances reflected in the said DCBR were erroneously shownrdquo said the source at EPFOBut when the EO squad visited Jet Airways office lsquothe establishment adopted delay mechanism citing the fact that they need time to collect the heavy files for verificationrsquo said the source who added ldquoThis was why the EO squad had to visit thrice for the verificationrdquo On May 23 2008 the EO squad wrote a visit note saying ldquoWe contacted the Deputy General Manager Finance Shirsh Limaye and Executive Finance Suchit Bhagwat to produce the relevant PF records before usrdquoldquoIt is further informed that we have restricted our verification of recordsstatutory returns in respect of only payment position made by the establishment Jet Airways for the period 200203 to 200708 as per the directions of the Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner Compliance SRO Kandivlirdquo reads the visit note undersigned by team of EO squadScam covered up in 2009 tooIn July 2009 the Assistant Director Audit MD Padgaonkar from the Internal Audit Party West Zone Nagpur had submitted a report to the Account Officer in Kandivli by keeping APFC Compliance in the loop ldquoOn verification of the dues and payment position in respect of Jet Airways it is seen that a number of remittances shown by the establishment in the reconciliation statement as paid are not reflected in the DCBR As a result a huge amount of short remittances has aroserdquo reads the letter SICldquoThe Accounts section has confirmed that the payment portion is verified on the basis of challans as DCBR was not given by EDP Finalisation of Annual accounts of the establishment without verification of remittances from SRDCBR is highly irregular and against the manual provisions The office should therefore reconcile the huge short remittances of Rs 395 crore by calling confirmatory statements from SBI Link Branch urgently Confirmation of recoveryreconciliation of the above short remittances may be intimated to the Internal Auditrdquo reads the letter undersigned by Padgaonkar on July 8 2009Next day Padgaonkar wrote another letter saying ldquoIt is observed that the establishment has remitted the PF and other dues every month belatedly The establishment seems to be in the habit of remitting the monthly dues belatedly But no action seems to have been initiated by the office for levy of penal interest under section 7Q and damages under section 14 B of Employeesrsquo Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Act 1952 and recovery thereofrdquoldquoThe account section has not furnished the information of belated remittances made by the establishment to the compliancedamage cell The compliancedamage cell have not initiated the action for the levy of penal interest and damages when they are having the DCBRs generated through CCTS on their filerdquo reads the letter SICThe source told midday that the verification was never done at Jet Airways and said ldquoWith the passage of time short remittances rose multifold plus the penal interest because compliance never took action against the establishmentrdquoPilots in the darkldquoAbove all the international pilots who worked with Jet Airways were kept in the dark about the PF scheme for several years But the PF amounts were deducted from their salaries Who siphoned off the moneyrdquo asked the source The international workers mostly pilots have cited their angst against the statement of Chief Vigilance Officer CVO Jitendra Khare who last week told midday ldquothere is no scam at allrdquoldquoIf there is no scam where is my money Can the CVO let us know where our money is stuck We are in desperate need of money to run our houses it is really painful to read such a baseless claim which the CVO made Has the CVO verified the allegations made against officials at Kandivli where one official has been booked by Central Bureau of Investigationrdquo asked an international pilotmidday tried to reach out to RPFC Kandivli Sudhir Ganvir but he did not respond to the queries sent to them ldquoI am busy in a private function and I canrsquot talk to yourdquo said CVO Khare while abruptly disconnecting the call The Central Board of Trustee CBT members have also raised serious questions over the safety and security of Jet employees PF money on multiple occasions but no internal enquiry was conducted A year after middayrsquos expose the CBI booked an EPFO employee Machindra Bamne his wife and 13 Jet employees under the Prevention of Corruption Act last week