Ghaziabad: Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) has suspended two employees for allegedly forging mayor Sunita Dayal’s signature to grant an unauthorised rebate on a community hall booking.According to a GMC official, clerk Prem Pal, who worked as a clerk with the mayor’s camp office, had signed the mayor’s name on a document providing rent benefit for a community centre to an applicant. The document was then processed by another clerk, Ramesh, who was posted in GMC’s property department and was allegedly in on the fraud. The forgery came to light during an inspection.“The document was cross-checked with the mayor’s office, which in turn informed us that the mayor did not sign any such document, following which a preliminary inquiry was initiated. It was found that the two clerks colluded in the forgery. They were suspended with immediate effect, and a further inquiry was initiated against them,” the official said. Under the UP Municipal Corporation Act, the mayor is vested with discretionary powers through which, by exercising this power and based on merit, the mayor can reduce the rent or charges of any facility provided by the corporation.An official from the mayor’s office said that the clerks had colluded to reduce the charge for availing the community service facility from its fixed rate of Rs 11,000 plus GST to Rs 5,000.“Apart from causing financial loss to the GMC, this compromised the office of the mayor. This is a serious issue because many documents change hands between the camp office of the mayor and the GMC’s main office, and in the process, duplication of the signature of the high office is a breach of trust and could have larger implications,” the official added.The mayoral office also asked various departments of the GMC to carry out a check on any such requests made on behalf of the mayor.
