Delhi: Two held for cheating MeitY of over ₹3 crore | Latest News Delhi

New Delhi, Two men, including a chartered accountant, allegedly cheated the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of over ₹3 crore under the pretext of the government-run SAMRIDH scheme for startups, an official said on Tuesday.

The accused have been identified as Prashant Agarwal , Director of M/s HPPL Foundation, and Sudhanshu Kumar Rakesh, a chartered accountant and partner in M/s Tripurari & Associates, he added.

The modus operandi of the duo involved exploiting the SAMRIDH scheme by making false representations to obtain government funds, failing to transfer the money to selected startups and covering up the fraud with forged financial reports, the officer said.

Agarwal also collected funds from startups under false pretenses, compounding the deception, he adde

“The case was registered on the basis of a complaint by Rashi Sharma, an authorised representative of the MeitY Startup Hub — an autonomous division under the ministry’s Digital India Corporation,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police , Economic Offences Wing, Amit Verma, in a statement.

According to the complaint, the SAMRIDH scheme was designed to support startups through accelerator programmes with a provision for matched funding of up to ₹40 lakh per startup. M/s HPPL Foundation, a not-for-profit entity headed by Agarwal, was selected as one of the accelerators and was released ₹3.04 crore for funding eight startups, he added.

The DCP said the investigations, however, revealed that Agarwal never disbursed the funds to the intended startups.

He instead misappropriated the amount and submitted fake and forged utilisation certificates to MSH, he added.

“These certificates were falsely certified under the seal of chartered accountant Sudhanshu Rakesh. The probe further revealed that Agarwal also collected nearly ₹11 lakh from several startups under the false promise of releasing government funds that never arrived,” the DCP said.

After gathering substantial oral, documentary and technical evidence, the police arrested Agarwal from Bengaluru on April 30. A search of his premises led to the recovery of digital devices and incriminating documents related to the crime.

Based on his disclosure, the EOW traced and arrested his associate Rakesh from Patna on May 7. Rakesh’s personal computer was found to contain templates of fake certificates and rubber stamps used in document fabrication.

Agarwal, originally from Chennai, holds a postgraduate degree in project management from Canada and an MBA from Bengaluru. He founded M/s HPPL Foundation in 2022, where his wife Saloni Agarwal is also a director.

Rakesh, born in Nalanda, completed his chartered accountancy in 2020 and currently works in a CA firm in Patna.

Both have been arrested in connection under multiple sections of the IPC registered at the EOW Police Station, police said.

Further investigation is underway to identify additional beneficiaries and trace the misused funds, they said.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.