India News | CBI Books EPFO Officials for Sharing Data of Subscribers with Private PF Consultants; Receiving Bribes

New Delhi, Feb 2 (PTI) The CBI has booked over 20 officers of EPFO in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur for allegedly receiving money through payment applications like PayTM, PhonePe and Google Pay among others from private provident fund consultants in return for performing their regular duties like claim settlements, officials said.

On getting an input that some EPFO officials are indulging in gross misconduct, the central probe agency had carried out joint surprise check with EPFO vigilance department in regional office in Guntur during which it seized the mobile phones of some employees with their consent.

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The scrutiny of their phones showed plethora of information about EPFO beneficiaries like UAN, passwords, OTPs being shared with some phone numbers of private PF consultants, they said.

"Further, the data exchanged between officials and such private consultants reveals that they are receiving illegal gratification/undue advantage in lieu of doing the EPFO official work. The undue advantage in the form of money is unauthorisedly obtained through different mobile payment apps as PayTM, PhonePe and Google Pay etc," the FIR alleged.

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The analysis of phones showed that employees were received screenshots of payments made through mobile apps after they shared UAN and respective passwords with consultants, it alleged.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)