By Matters India Reporter
Bhopal, Nov 12, 2022: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) sleuths have raided the office and residence of an Evangelical Lutheran Church bishop and four associates for alleged charges of embezzlement of employees’ provident fund to the tune of 50 million rupees in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
This is the second such raid of a Protestant bishop by the EOW, a special branch of the state police dealing with financial crimes, within two months.
“The charges against us are totally false,” says Pastor Ashok Chouksey, a senior official of the Church, headquartered in Chhindwara district in the state.
Confirming the raid, Pastor Chouksey told Matters India on November 11, a day after the raid, that EOW 70 officials searched the office and residence of our Bishop S K Sukka and three other locations of its office bearers. A separate team searched the residence of another office bearer based in Bhopal, the state capital.
Pastor Chouksey also said during the search nothing incriminating was recovered. “We provided all our documents related to our operations to the EOW officials and promised to co-operate with the probe agency,” he added.
The EOW in a statement said it acted based a complaint that the officials of the ELC had embezzled employees’ provident fund to the tune of 50 million rupees over a decade.
The Church deducted the amount from their salaries but did not deposit with the Provident Fund department.
The fraud came to the notice only when some of the employees tried to withdraw money from their PF account, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The EOW statement also said a First Information Report was registered against officials of the ELC, however, did not give any detail of recovery of cash or other incriminating documents.
Generally, the EOW releases certain details about its finding after the search, but in this case no detail has been released to media.
Pastor Chouksey, who the head treasurer of the Church, said, “Our Church does not run any institution that warrants deduction of PF, however, we registered 125 ministers who have been serving in the Church with the PF to ensure that they should have some social security in their old age.”
The Church also deducted a small amount from their stipend and deposited it with matching amount in the PF.
Among them, many died. and barring 38, others settled all their cases with the PF, however, some who have encroached the Church land and illegally occupied the church accommodation given to them created false story of PF fraud, Pastor Chouksey added.
One of the relatives of a Church member, who was allegedly displeased with the appointment of Bishop Sukka and his new team, lodged the complaint with the EOW when the PF issue was already under the consideration of the PF Commissioner.
“Even if we calculate by taking into account all stipend paid to them it would not amount to even 10 million Indian rupees,” he said and asked, “How can there be a scam of 50 million?”
In the second week September, the EOW raided Moderator of Church of North India (CNI) Bishop P C Singh who headed Jabalpur diocese and recovered 16 million Indian rupees and foreign currency worth US$250 from his possession.
He was also accused of siphoning off 27 million rupees from the diocese along with his family members especially his wife and son. Bishop Singh and his son are currently under judicial custody and his wife and daughter are also reportedly under probe.
The CNI Synod removed him from all posts following his arrest.