Kolkata police on Thursday submitted a chargesheet against Debanjan Deb, who had allegedly pretended to be an IAS officer and been involved in a fake vaccination camp in south Kolkata’s Kasba area in June.
The 1,000-plus-page document charges Deb and seven of his alleged associates with attempt to murder, cheating, forgery, impersonation and disobeying government officials.
If convicted, the eight could be imprisoned for life.
An officer said there were 10 criminal cases against Deb. The chargesheet filed on Thursday was in connection with just one of them.
Deb, who was arrested at his Kasba office two months ago, has not got bail in any of the 10 cases yet. The Enforcement Directorate has drawn up a separate case against him.
The chargesheet was submitted in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Kolkata in connection with the case that was registered with Kasba police station on June 22.
The police said there were several other cases pending against him and the investigation was being handled by the detective department of the city police.
Other than Deb, the persons whose names feature in the chargesheet are Rabin Sikder, Sushanta Das, Sarat Patra, Arabinda Baidya, Ashok Kumar Roy, Kanchan Deb and Santunu Manna.
Sikder and Das were the alleged signatories for the bank account that Deb was operating in the name of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC); Patra was the purported compounder who was not trained in administering vaccines but had been engaged by Deb to push the shots at the fake jab camps; Baidya was Deb’s bodyguard who was allegedly aware of his malpractices, the police said.
Roy, the landlord of the Shantipally property where Deb was running a fake KMC office, was allegedly aware that it was a fake office. Deb’s cousin Kanchan had allegedly brought candidates to him for securing government jobs for them against payment.
Manna was allegedly engaged by Deb as a caretaker of his godown at Taltala where he used to stock hand sanitisers and masks, meant for distribution.
All eight have been accused in other cases, including holding a fake jab camp at a north Kolkata college and also running a job racket.
Deb has also been charged with forging signatures of several IAS officers attached to the KMC.
The chargesheet contains statements of 130 witnesses.
Crime and punishment
Sections mentioned in the chargesheet and the maximum punishment they carry
- IPC Section 420 — cheating — seven years in jail
- IPC Section 419 — cheating by personation — three years
- IPC Section 467 — forgery — 10 years
- IPC Section 468 — forgery for cheating — seven years
- IPC Section 471 — fraudulently using a forged document as genuine — two years
- IPC Section 474 — forgery or fraudulent use of document related to court or official records — seven years
- IPC Section 275 — use of adulterated drugs — six months
- IPC Section 276 — sale of medicines as another drug — six months
- IPC Section 307 — attempt to murder — 10 years or life imprisonment
- IPC Section 170 — personating a public servant — two years
- IPC Section 188 — disobedience to order promulgated by public servant — six months
- Section 51(B) of Disaster Management Act, 2005 — punishment for obstruction to government officers from performing duty — two years