A five-star hotel in Delhi's Aerocity has filed a case against one of its guests for staying at their hotel for almost two years without making any payment. In its complaint, the hotel, Roseate House, near the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, said it has suffered losses worth Rs 58 lakh.
According to the First Information Report (FIR) by Vinod Malhotra, Ankush Dutta stayed for 603 days without making a single payment. Malhotra filed the case on behalf of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited.
As per the details, Prem Prakash, the head of the Front Office Department, granted permission for this extended stay, disregarding the hotel's established norms. Dutta checked out without paying a single penny.
Dutta allegedly checked in on May 30, 2019, for one night but extended his stay until January 22, 2021.
As per the current hotel policy, one has to notify the CEO and FC if a guest's dues exceed 72 hours. Prakash failed to inform them about Dutta's outstanding balance.
The hotel management suspects that Prakash may have received illicit cash from Dutta in exchange for manipulating the hotel's internal software system, which tracks guest stays and financial accounts.
According to the FIR lodged at IGI Airport police station, Vinod Malhotra, an authorised representative of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited, which operates Roseate House in Aerocity, alleged that Prem Prakash, head of the Front Office Department of the hotel, who was authorised to decide room rates and had access to the hotel computer system to track dues of all guests, allowed Dutta’s long stay violating the hotel norms.
The FIR stated: “A criminal conspiracy was hatched by guest Ankush Dutta along with some known and unknown hotel staff, including Prem Prakash with a motive to gain wrongfully and deprive the hotel of its rightful dues.”
It further stated that Prakash forged an outstanding payment report by combining unrelated guests' bills to hide Dutta's pending dues. Prakash also manipulated the accounts to falsely show that other guests had paid for Dutta's expenses, which were later found to be false and baseless.
“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,” it added.
“The scrutiny of the record of the alleged officials of the hotel revealed that they created several fake and false pending bills to benefit Ankush Dutta by adopting various ways like by removing room nights from his bills, transferring his debits into the bills of other guests’ bills, using settled bills of other guests by incorporating his name in the bill, etc," the FIR said.
The hotel also noticed that Dutta paid three cheques of Rs 10 lakh, Rs 7 lakh and Rs 20 lakh at different dates but all of them bounced and Prakash didn’t bring this fact to the notice of the hotel management.
The hotel has demanded strict legal action against Dutta, Prakash and others involved as “they have committed criminal offences, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts".
A preliminary inquiry by the IGI police showed that prima facie the offences were made out, and now they are further probing the matter.
(With agency inputs)
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