NEW DELHI – The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), New Delhi, has registered a criminal case against a former supervisor of the Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI) for allegedly orchestrating an elaborate procurement scam. The accused is charged with creating a fake firm to siphon off over ₹63 lakh from the government exchequer.
The First Information Report (FIR), registered on February 2, 2026, names Shri Naveen Mehto, the then Supervisor (P&A) at SECI, as the sole accused.
The “Ghost” Vendor Scheme
According to the CBI investigation, between 2018 and 2020, Mehto allegedly exploited his position in the personnel and administration department to facilitate the fraud. The investigation revealed that Mehto registered a firm under the name “M/s Kendriya Bhandar”—strikingly similar to the well-known government cooperative—with the GST department.
To lend legitimacy to the fake firm, he used SECI’s previous office address in Saket, South Delhi, and opened a bank account at Axis Bank in Gurgaon, naming himself as the sole proprietor.
Deception via Digital Forgery
The probe detailed how Mehto allegedly manipulated SECI’s internal systems:
More Read
- Fake Communication: He created a deceptive email ID—kendriyabhandarcgo@gmail.com—to mimic the official ID of the actual Kendriya Bhandar.
- Record Tampering: Using this fake ID, he sent an email to his own official SECI account, purportedly from a person named “Anand,” requesting that SECI update its banking records to his own Axis Bank account.
- Redirected Payments: Mehto then presented printouts of these emails to SECI’s Finance Division, leading the corporation to transfer funds intended for legitimate procurement to his personal control.
A “Partial Supply” Cover-Up
To avoid immediate detection, Mehto reportedly used a portion of the siphoned funds to keep the scheme running. He would transfer money from his fraudulent “Kendriya Bhandar” account to his personal saving account, then issue cheques to the actual Kendriya Bhandar for limited amounts of stationery.
Once he received small batches of genuine supplies and bills, he allegedly submitted fake invoices to SECI for much larger amounts—matching the advance payments SECI had already released.
Financial Impact and Legal Charges
The CBI’s Preliminary Enquiry (PE) found that while SECI transferred ₹87,68,357 to the fraudulent account, only about ₹23.89 lakh was actually used to procure items for the corporation. This resulted in a total wrongful loss of approximately ₹63,78,868 to the government exchequer.
More Read
The accused faces charges under several sections of the law:
- Indian Penal Code (IPC): Sections 420 (Cheating), 467 (Forgery of valuable security), 468 (Forgery for cheating), and 471 (Using forged documents as genuine).
- Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988: Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d), relating to criminal misconduct and abuse of official position.
The case has been assigned to Inspector Abhijeet Singh Shekhawat for further investigation. The FIR was authorized by I.B. Pendhari, Superintendent of Police, CBI ACB New Delhi, after obtaining the mandatory prior approval from SECI authorities.
