When the CBI started investigating some government officers in an illegal assets case back in 2007, it had little idea that three years later, its trail would end up in an expose of forgery by the Hiranandani brothers, directors of Hiranandani Construction. MiD DAY gives you a blow-by-blow account of how the Hiranandani empire got caught in the crossfire. EPF's inspection in 2006
The CBI officer said, "We found that a surprise inspection of Hiranandani office was carried by EPF officers on March 4, 2006. The reports said that Hiranandani had evaded EPF of 137 employees.
But M R Yadav, the then regional provident fund commissioner, didn't take any substantial action.
On March 27, 2006, another EPF team carried out an inspection at another Hiranandani office.
The team reported its findings to K Gopalan, the assistant provident fund commissioner, who is the fourth accused in the case.
Gopalan sent notices to authorities concerned and the EPF of 48 people was paid. But no inquiry was made. It was during this investigation that the central role of Hiranandani was established in dodging the EPF. The unexpected find
In 2007, the CBI raided houses of the two provident fund commissioners Yadav and Gopalan accused in an illegal assets case.
They found about Rs 25 to 30 lakh at each of their houses and booked them for misappropriation of assets.
During the investigation, they stumbled upon papers related to the EPF of Hiranandani builders. Piecing the bits
The CBI said that they started putting together all the information about the Hiranandani firm and their contractors to see whether they were paying EPF to their employees.
The CBI narrowed down on some 250 contractors who work for Hiranandani, but chose 18 who deal with a majority of employees.
CBI's DIG Praveen Salunkhe said, "When the Hiranandanis came to know that the CBI was behind them, they called a meeting of all the contractors and told them to prepare forged documents and registers for their employees and their EPF.
When we questioned a few contractors and employees, we found that the names and the documents were forged."
Hiranandani caught
According to the CBI, they found documents including false wage records of site workers.
The documents were forged by the Hiranandanis, senior executives, and consultants in tandem with the labour contractors to evade the provident fund liabilities.
Said Salunkhe, "The alleged non-payment, according to a report filed by EPF officials, was Rs 9.39 crore.
Niranjan and Surendra had conspired with EPFO officials and prepared bogus details of PF contributions. Such contributions were never made and the Hiranandani Group was allowed to get undue benefit.
EPFO had found that other 18 sub-contractors of Hiranandani group were also liable to pay Rs 8.37 crore as EPF."
Mother-of-all Chargesheets
The CBI made a record by filing the longest chargesheet until this day: 45,373 pages.
The Anti Corruption Bureau of CBI on Monday filed a 45,373-page chargesheet against Hiranandani and the officers of Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) at a special court.
The detailed chargesheet, longest until this day, pips all previous ones to hold the record of being the longest.
What is EPF?
Any organisation with over 20 employees has to pay an employee's provident fund (EPF).
It is a share of salary collected by the employee and the employer for the latter. When the employee leaves the company he gets the fund.
For a salary of Rs 6,500, an EPF of 12 per cent is deducted from the employee's salary and the employer chips one more percent more than that. In all, 25 per cent is deposited in the employee account.
For salaries more than this, the employee and employer mutually decide the percentage.
Other unwieldy chargesheets:
16,014 pages
The 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case chargesheet
11,280 pages
The case papers of the 26/11 terror attack
11,044 pages
The 7/11 suburban train serial blasts case chargesheet
45,373 pages | 
