Man Stays at Delhi 5-Star for 2 Years Without Paying Bill
A five-star hotel suffered a loss of Rs 58 lakh when one of its guests stayed for almost two years without making any payment.
A five-star hotel here is alleged to have suffered a loss of Rs 58 lakh when one of its guests colluded with some hotel staff and stayed for almost two years without making any payment.
Roseate House near the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, has lodged a case at IGI Airport police station. According to the FIR lodged recently by Vinod Malhotra, an authorised representative Hotel, guest Ankush Dutta stayed for 603 days which cost Rs 58 lakh but checked out without paying a single penny. The FIR alleges that Prem Prakash, head of 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 to violate the hotel norms. The hotel management suspects that Prakash might have received some cash amount from Dutta for letting him overstay. He forged, deleted, added accounts entries and falsified a large number of entries in the Opera software system of the hotel. The hotel has alleged that Dutta checked in on May 30, 2019 and booked a room for one night. He was supposed to check out the very next day on May 31 but he kept on extending his stay till January 22, 2021. The hotel norm says that if a guest’s pending outstanding dues exceed 72 hours, it should be brought to the notice of the CEO and Financial Controller for their information and to seek instruction. However, Prakash didn’t send Dutta’s dues to the CEO and FC of the hotel. According to the FIR, Prakash didn’t make any outstanding payment reports from May 30, 2019, to October 25, 2019. When Prem Prakash created the outstanding payment report, he forged it by clubbing pending bills of other unrelated guests into one bill with the motive to camouflage the pending dues of Dutta.
The hotel has alleged that Prakash resorted to various modus operandi to help Dutta enjoy a long stay there. He even fudged the account to show that other guests, who stayed in the hotel, paid for Dutta which turned out to be fabricated. The hotel has demanded a strict legal action against the culprits as “they have committed criminal offences, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts”.
