Guwahati: A man allegedly from Assam reportedly duped a five-star hotel in New Delhi worth Rs 58 lakh with the help of a hotel employee.
According to reports, the man stayed at the Roseate House in Aerocity of Delhi for nearly two years.
He allegedly during his stay did not make any payments to the hotel as some hotel staff had good relations with him.
As per the FIR lodged, the accused Akush Dutta stayed for 603 days at the hotel. His stay had cost the hotel around Rs 58 lakh of which none was allegedly paid.
The FIR also included the name of the Front Office Department head, Prem Prakash. It was claimed that Prem Prakash allowed the accused to stay at the hotel violating the norms.
Prem Prakash according to the FIR had access to the hotel computer system that tracks the dues of all guests. he is also authorised to decide the room rates of the hotel.
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The FIR was filed by Vinod Malhotra, an authorised representative of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited, which operates Roseate.
It has also been suspected that Dutta had given Prakash a cash amount to allow him to stay at the hotel.
This was suspected as Prakash had allowed Dutta to overstay by manipulating its in-house software system.
The FIR read, “A criminal conspiracy was hatched by guest Ankush Dutta along with some known and unknown hotel staff, including Mr Prem Prakash with a motive to gain wrongfully and deprive the hotel of its rightful dues.”
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It added, “In pursuance of the said conspiracy, the alleged staff of the hotel forged, deleted, added accounts entries and falsified a large number of entries in the account of the said guest Ankush Dutta in the Opera software system of the hotel.”
Accused Ankush Dutta had checked in on May 30, 2019, for a night and was scheduled for check out on May 31, 2019. But, his checkout did not come until January 22, 2021, as he kept on extending the stay,
As per the hotel’s norms, any guest who is to stay for more than 72 hours with outstanding dues must be brought to the notice of the CEO but this one wasn’t.
The financial controller is also to be informed of further instructions. But in this case, Prakash did not send the details of Dutta to either the CEO or the financial controller.
It was further alleged that the outstanding payment report that was supposed to be prepared by Prakash was kept pending for months. As per the FIR, he did not prepare any reports from May 30, 2019, to October 25, 2019.
However, the reports that were filed by him on October 25 were allegedly forged as he had clubbed certain unrelated bills instead of those related to Dutta.
It was also reported that while he stayed at the hotel, Dutta did pay three cheques worth Rs 10 lakh, Rs 7 lakh and Rs 20 lakh on different dates but all those bounced.
Prakash too did not report the matter to the management.
The hotel authorities have now demanded strict actions against Dutta and his accomplice alleging criminal offence.