Uttam Chakraborty, an employee of Dinhata municipality in Cooch Behar district, was arrested on Monday night on charges of forgery and collecting money from people in the name of fees charged by the civic body.

Chakraborty's alleged involvement in a scam surfaced last week, prompting Gouri Shankar Maheswari, the chairman of the Trinamool Congress-run civic body, to resign on Monday.

After Maheswari had tendered his resignation, Dinhata police called him for questioning. Later, the employee was picked up.

The municipality had taken an initiative a couple of years back to find out whether there were illegal constructions in the Dinhata town. Some employees, including Chakraborty, were engaged in the task. They visited the houses and gathered details.

“Uttam Chakraborty was proactive and started meeting people who were planning to construct new houses or flats. He assured them that he would help them get their building plans approved by the civic body,” said a source.

During this process, he met a resident of Ward 2. The resident applied for approval of his building plan through Chakraborty and paid ₹77,500 as fees. In due course, Chakraborty handed him a money receipt of ₹66,000 that was duly stamped and signed.

“The resident went ahead and recently, he wanted to carry out some modifications of his house. For this work, he approached the civic authorities again, seeking approval. As he furnished the documents and the money receipt, the officers at the municipality were caught by surprise. They found that not a penny has been deposited at the municipality as the fee for approval of his building’s plan,” the source added.

The man claimed that he had paid the employee. The authorities scrutinised the receipt and found that it carried the signatures of Maheswari and an engineer, along with the official seal.

Six other residents eventually made similar complaints to the civic body, which led Alok Kumar Sen, the municipality's executive officer, to file a police complaint against Chakraborty.

The police interrogated the employee several times and took him into custody on Monday night.

“Uttam Chakraborty has been arrested for forging government documents and siphoning off money. He was produced in a court in Dinhata today (Tuesday). The court remanded him in police custody for 13 days,” said Nihar Ranjan Gupta, a government lawyer.