Metaljunction services ltd (MSL), the 50:50 joint venture between Tata Steel and SAIL, has been allegedly cheated of around Rs 12.25 crore by a local businessman here.

According to the Bistupur police, an FIR lodged by metaljunction official Ravindranath Srivastava alleges that Vijay K Gupta, proprietor of Jharkhand Steel & Alloys Industries, had, in connivance with a metaljunction employee, Debnath Mukhopadhyay, cheated metaljunction of the amount.

Sources said Gupta was involved, through his firm, in the buying of Tata Steel scrap through metaljunction’s bidding process on the Net.

Abiding by the company’s set procedure, JS&AI would deposit the cheque for the transaction amount in metaljunction’s local office before taking the scrap from Tata Steel’s premises here on the basis of clearance documents (chalan order, etc) obtained from metaljunction.

What allegedly went wrong was that around 30 cheques issued by JS&AI during the last three-four months as payment towards scrap lots won by the firm were made to accumulate at the metaljunction office instead of being promptly deposited in the bank as and when they were received.

Finally, when they were deposited in the bank, all the cheques, representing around Rs 12.25 crore, allegedly bounced.

metaljunction transacts on behalf of its clients, which, in this case, was Tata Steel. Only a certain percentage of the transaction value goes to metaljunction as income.

metaljunction, meanwhile, is learnt to have suspended Mukhopadhyay some time ago. Mukhopadhyay’s name appears as an accused in the FIR (309/07) lodged by the company on September 29.

The police told FE on Thursday that charges against the accused have been lodged under Sections 409, 420, 468, 477A & 120B of the IPC and that investigations were on, even though the investigating officer is in Orissa in connection with another case.

Asked about the cheating incident, metaljunction’s Kolkata office said, “We have filed an FIR with the police at Bistupur in Jamshedpur . The police are investigating the case and the law will take its own course.”