Unlicensed IT firm in fraud
An unlicensed software company that had been operating out of Bengal’s IT hub for three years without the authorities noticing is being investigated for cheating campus recruits of their security deposits and salaries.
Trainees of INFOGEN Global filed an FIR with Bidhannagar East police station on Tuesday against “chief visionary” Anirban Ghosh and his management team for criminal breach of trust and fraud. The company, which has four offices in Salt Lake, had recruited them as software developers last year for an annual pay package of Rs 84,000 each but hasn’t paid them a rupee so far.
Each of these trainees, either BTech or MCA degree-holders from engineering colleges in Bengal and elsewhere, had to deposit Rs 50,000 each to the company as “refundable security bond” and commit themselves to working there for two years.
Santu Das, one of the duped trainees, said he paid the company Rs 50,000 on March 10 last year (Andhra Bank draft number 722010) but did not get his joining letter until December. “I have been working since December 15 but haven’t received my first salary yet.”
Santu’s colleagues who had joined earlier than him haven’t received anything either.“Everything about the company looked more dubious with each day I spent in the office at Rashmi Building in Sector V. We were first told that our salaries were not being disbursed because projects had dried up. The management next announced that the impact of the downturn was so serious that our company would have to be merged with a firm called D’zire Communication,” recalled Minajur Rehman.
Exit Ghosh, enter Prosenjit Roy.
Roy, the head of D’zire Communication, told the trainees that he would be in charge from then on and would clear their dues soon. When post-dated cheques for Rs 7,000 each were distributed among them on January 21, the recruits thought the crisis was over. All the cheques, drawn on Ramkrishnapur Cooperative Bank in Howrah and dated February 2, bounced.
Some of the trainees filed a general diary at the Sector V police outpost on Friday when they found the senior management and mid-level executives missing from the company’s offices. They registered a second complaint three days later but the police allegedly didn’t act on it.
“We decided to file an FIR on finding our two first-floor offices under lock and key,” said Mintu Nath, sitting on the staircase with his hands on his head.
S.A. Ahmed, the chairman of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, confirmed that INFOGEN Global wasn’t licensed but couldn’t say why no action had been taken against it.
State IT minister Debes Das said the company had approached him for land a year ago but he didn’t entertain the request. “I scanned the list of registered IT companies on my laptop and didn’t find its name. When the company came to me again, I asked for the annual audit report. It didn’t get back to me,”he told.
Das said he heard the company’s name again when his office received enquiries about it in the past few months. “I asked my staff to warn anyone who asked about the company not to join it.”
Ghosh and his wife Debarchana Mitra Ghosh, the “director of people management”, were unavailable for comment. “They are absconding but we will arrest them,” said Sujoy Chanda, the additional superintendent of police.
Source: The Telegraph
Trainees of INFOGEN Global filed an FIR with Bidhannagar East police station on Tuesday against “chief visionary” Anirban Ghosh and his management team for criminal breach of trust and fraud. The company, which has four offices in Salt Lake, had recruited them as software developers last year for an annual pay package of Rs 84,000 each but hasn’t paid them a rupee so far.
Each of these trainees, either BTech or MCA degree-holders from engineering colleges in Bengal and elsewhere, had to deposit Rs 50,000 each to the company as “refundable security bond” and commit themselves to working there for two years.
Santu Das, one of the duped trainees, said he paid the company Rs 50,000 on March 10 last year (Andhra Bank draft number 722010) but did not get his joining letter until December. “I have been working since December 15 but haven’t received my first salary yet.”
Santu’s colleagues who had joined earlier than him haven’t received anything either.“Everything about the company looked more dubious with each day I spent in the office at Rashmi Building in Sector V. We were first told that our salaries were not being disbursed because projects had dried up. The management next announced that the impact of the downturn was so serious that our company would have to be merged with a firm called D’zire Communication,” recalled Minajur Rehman.
Exit Ghosh, enter Prosenjit Roy.
Roy, the head of D’zire Communication, told the trainees that he would be in charge from then on and would clear their dues soon. When post-dated cheques for Rs 7,000 each were distributed among them on January 21, the recruits thought the crisis was over. All the cheques, drawn on Ramkrishnapur Cooperative Bank in Howrah and dated February 2, bounced.
Some of the trainees filed a general diary at the Sector V police outpost on Friday when they found the senior management and mid-level executives missing from the company’s offices. They registered a second complaint three days later but the police allegedly didn’t act on it.
“We decided to file an FIR on finding our two first-floor offices under lock and key,” said Mintu Nath, sitting on the staircase with his hands on his head.
S.A. Ahmed, the chairman of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, confirmed that INFOGEN Global wasn’t licensed but couldn’t say why no action had been taken against it.
State IT minister Debes Das said the company had approached him for land a year ago but he didn’t entertain the request. “I scanned the list of registered IT companies on my laptop and didn’t find its name. When the company came to me again, I asked for the annual audit report. It didn’t get back to me,”he told.
Das said he heard the company’s name again when his office received enquiries about it in the past few months. “I asked my staff to warn anyone who asked about the company not to join it.”
Ghosh and his wife Debarchana Mitra Ghosh, the “director of people management”, were unavailable for comment. “They are absconding but we will arrest them,” said Sujoy Chanda, the additional superintendent of police.
Source: The Telegraph
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