Patna: A Patna-based CBI special court on Tuesday delivered the first set of sentences in the Srijan scam, one of Bihar’s most widely discussed financial frauds. The court handed down rigorous imprisonment and substantial fines to three men, including a former treasury staff member and a bank official, for their role in diverting government money to the account of an NGO.
Judge Sunil Kumar II of the CBI special court pronounced the verdict in RC 11A/2017 (Special Case 3/2018), finding all three accused guilty of offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court sentenced Amarendra Kumar Yadav, the then Nazir of the Bhagalpur District Magistrate’s office, to four years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 14 lakh. Ajay Kumar Pandey received four years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 6.25 lakh. Rakesh Kumar, the then assistant manager at Indian Bank’s Bhagalpur branch, was sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 2.5 lakh.
The CBI examined 38 prosecution witnesses in the case, with the court concluding that the three men were directly involved in the illegal diversion of government funds.
A scam stretching over a decade
The Srijan scam came to light in 2017, when it was discovered that around Rs 12 crore had been illegally transferred from the Banka and Bhagalpur district treasuries to the account of Srijan Mahila Vikas Samiti, an NGO, between 2003–04 and 2017. What initially appeared to be an isolated financial irregularity soon expanded into a multi-layered fraud involving public officials and bank employees.
The case was first investigated by the Bihar Police but was later transferred to the CBI due to its scale and complexity. The agency subsequently filed a charge sheet against the three individuals convicted in Tuesday’s verdict.
This judgment marks the first sentencing among several cases linked to the broader Srijan scam, which allegedly involves the misappropriation of more than Rs 12 crores across multiple years. Further cases continue to move through the courts.
