An employee embezzled millions of rupees from the Punjab University (PU) salary account over the course of 16 months before being noticed and – over a year after confessing – has not only escaped criminal charges, but is still getting monthly wages.
Nasrullah, a senior key punch operator at the Accounts Branch (Salary Section), transferred money meant to be paid out in salaries to various personal accounts. He later confessed and returned about Rs4 million. But some 14 months since he was suspended, no legal action has been taken against him.
PU officials privy to the matter told The Express Tribune that at least Rs30 million, possibly more, had gone missing from the university’s salary account. However, the treasurer insisted that the amount of money embezzled was less than that and most of it had been recovered.
Senior faculty members at the university said that the loss of millions of rupees from the salary account over the course of almost a year and a half was, at best, a major oversight on the part of treasury officials. The fact that no FIR had been registered against the main culprit was, they suggested, a sign that senior officials may have been involved.
Bank accounts
Each month, around Rs80 million is transferred to a joint salary account at the Habib Bank Limited Branch at the Quaid-i-Azam Campus, from which wages are later transferred to the accounts of university employees.
In late 2010, Nasrullah began making unauthorised transfers from the salary account to various personal accounts, including some accounts in Shakargarh, his hometown, and to the accounts of two other university employees. One month, he transferred Rs2 million to a single account. These illegal transfers continued for 16 months.
“Nobody at PU noticed,” said a senior university official. Eventually, the HBL branch in Shakargarh noticed the irregular activity in Nasrullah’s account in their branch. They found out that he was from the town and a PU employee. They wrote to the HBL PU branch, which brought the issue to the attention of the university.
A senior official at the HBL PU branch, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that they had been alerted to the irregularities by their branch in Shakargarh. He said that they were investigating whether employees at the PU bank branch were involved.
“It was a great lapse on the university’s part. They failed to detect the irregularities in their salary sheet for months and wouldn’t have known about it but for bank officials,” said a senior PU official.
Inquiry
Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran issued a notification setting up an inquiry committee on September 15, 2011. The committee found that Nasrullah had been transferring money into the accounts of Syed Kamran Maqbool, a naib qasid at the Institute of Chemistry, and Qaiser Waseem Bhatti, a senior clerk at the Accounts Branch, according to official documents.
Nasrullah told the inquiry committee that the two men were mainly responsible for the fraud and all three were suspended on October 14, 2011. During suspension, employees still receive salaries. Nasrullah returned Rs4 million and has been receiving his salary for the 14 months of his suspension, which is still ongoing. Maqbool and Bhatti, also still suspended, have not been receiving their salaries.
Maqbool, speaking to The Express Tribune, claimed that he had been duped by Nasrullah and he had never knowingly participated in the embezzlement, for which he had not received any money.
“He asked for my account number, stating that a relative sent him money each month but could not send it directly to his [Nasrullah’s] account,” said Maqbool. “Whenever extra money came into my account, Nasrullah asked me for it and I gave it to him. I didn’t take a single penny.”
Maqbool said that he felt obliged to help Nasrullah because he worked in the Salary Section, and “we all have some problems there from time to time”. He said that he had not received any income in the last 14 months and was close to starvation. “The case should go to the police so that an impartial inquiry is conducted,” he added.
Nasrullah claimed that Maqbool and Bhatti had convinced him to make the illegal transfers. “They have a criminal history,” he said.
Denial
PU Treasurer Rao Sharif denied any involvement in the embezzlement. “I am the one who tackled the case so how could I be involved?” he said.
He conceded that there were “some lacunae” in the system, which was why the matter had gone undetected for many months. “The positive thing is that we tracked the culprits and hunted them down,” he added.
Asked why Nasrullah was still being paid by the university, he said that this was because he had paid back the money he had embezzled, which he put at Rs4 million. “The salary of the other two is not being issued because it is being deducted to recover the money they embezzled,” he said.
Asked why the university had not initiated criminal proceedings, Sharif said that they did not trust the police. “If we had lodged the FIR we wouldn’t have recovered any money. We were told that the police would strike a deal with the culprits and let them go free. We solved it on our own and recovered the money.”
He denied that Rs30 million had gone missing from the salary account. He said that almost all the money that had been embezzled had been recovered. Maqbool and Bhatti are reported in official documents to owe the university around Rs400,000 each, putting the embezzled amount close to Rs5 million.
Dr Ahsan Sharif, a member of the inquiry committee, said he could not comment on an official matter. Additional Registrar Dr Aurangzeb Alamgir said he was on leave and refused to comment. PU Registrar Professor Khan Rass Masood also declined to comment.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 6th, 2013.