Peon runs job racket in Pune civic body, dupes engineers of lakhs

Written by: MANOJ MORE

3 min readPuneJul 18, 2026 05:30 PM IST

Shivanand Patil, a peon in the PMC’s education department, has been suspended, pending a departmental inquiry. (Image generated using AI)

A Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) peon and three accomplices allegedly ran a fake job racket in the city, duping hundreds of aspirants and cheating them of lakhs of rupees.

Shivanand Patil, a peon in the PMC’s education department, was arrested on Friday. “We are searching for the three other accused involved in the job racket,” Police Inspector Girish Dighavakar of the Shivajinagar police station told The Indian Express.

The fraud came to light after Dharamchandra Devkate, an engineer, contacted PMC Additional Municipal Commissioner Prajit Nair, saying he had been cheated. “He submitted proof of the amount he paid to the peon and his associates. He showed the fake appointment letters. The letters carried fake stamps and signatures of senior officials,” Nair said.

As Devkate was hesitant, the PMC approached the police, and a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged.

What the FIR said

According to the FIR, Patil and two of his accomplices, Rajendra Khedekar and Namita Bansode, allegedly cheated Devkate of Rs 45 lakh between May 2022 and May 2025 under the pretext of securing him a job as a junior engineer. The complaint states that the accused forged PMC letterheads, stamps, and signatures of senior officials to lure citizens into paying large sums under the pretext of getting them jobs in various PMC departments.

Nair said they have come across three cases where people were promised jobs as junior engineers and were cheated. “While the first complainant was duped of Rs 45 lakh, two others were duped of Rs 15 and Rs 10 lakh, respectively. We believe others have been duped similarly,” he added.

The police suspect that Patil—a job fraud case was registered against him a month and a half ago—and his accomplices may have duped hundreds of job seekers.

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Nair said that when Devkate told Patil that he would lodge a complaint with the police, the latter gave him cheques of different amounts in lieu of the Rs 45 lakh taken from him. “The first cheque bounced. It was after that that he approached us,” Nair explained.

According to Nair, though some people were duped in the past, the accused tried to bargain with them and promised to return their money. “So, police complaints were not lodged,” he said.

Municipal Commissioner Naval Kishore Ram said, “As soon as the complainant approached us, we investigated the matter and lodged an FIR against the culprits. We are carrying out further investigation to find out how many more citizens have been duped.”

Patil has been suspended, pending a departmental inquiry.