five-star hotel Roseate House, Aerocity, in New Delhi. Image used for representational purposes only.
The Front Office Department head, Prem Prakash, at New Delhi’s Roseate House hotel, is accused in an FIR of potentially tampering with the hotel’s internal software to enable guest Ankush Dutta to extend his stay without making payment for nearly two years, resulting in a loss of ₹58 lakh
The Front Office Department head, Prem Prakash, at New Delhi’s Roseate House hotel, is accused in an FIR of potentially tampering with the hotel’s internal software to enable guest Ankush Dutta to extend his stay without making payment for nearly two years, resulting in a loss of ₹58 lakh.
According to an FIR, a luxury hotel in New Delhi has reportedly incurred a loss of ₹58 lakh as a result of a guest’s extended stay spanning nearly two years, during which the guest evaded payment by colluding with certain hotel staff members.
Roseate House, situated in Aerocity near the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, has registered a case at the IGI Airport police station. The recently filed FIR, lodged by Vinod Malhotra, an authorized representative of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited, the operator of Roseate, alleges that Ankush Dutta, the guest in question, stayed for 603 days without paying any charges, resulting in a financial loss of ₹58 lakh. The FIR further accuses Prem Prakash, the head of the hotel’s Front Office Department, who possessed the authority to determine room rates and had access to the hotel’s computer system for tracking guest dues, of allowing Mr. Dutta’s extended stay in violation of hotel norms.
The hotel management suspects that Mr. Prakash may have received undisclosed cash payments from Mr. Dutta in exchange for manipulating the hotel’s in-house software system, responsible for managing and monitoring guest stays and accounts.
The FIR states, “A criminal conspiracy was hatched by guest Mr. 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.” It further adds that the alleged staff members of the hotel forged, deleted, and added entries to the guest’s account in the hotel’s Opera software system, falsifying a significant number of entries.
The hotel claims that Mr. Dutta initially checked in on May 30, 2019, for a one-night stay but continuously extended his stay until January 22, 2021. According to hotel norms, if a guest’s outstanding dues exceed 72 hours, the CEO and Financial Controller should be notified for further action. However, Mr. Prakash failed to inform the CEO and FC of the hotel about Mr. Dutta’s outstanding dues.
The FIR reveals that Mr. Prakash did not generate any outstanding payment report from May 30, 2019, to October 25, 2019. Even when he eventually created the outstanding payment report after October 25, he manipulated it by combining pending bills from unrelated guests into one bill to conceal Mr. Dutta’s outstanding dues.
The hotel alleges that Mr. Prakash employed various tactics to enable Mr. Dutta’s prolonged stay, including falsifying accounts to suggest that other guests had paid for Mr. Dutta’s expenses, a fabrication that was later discovered.
Furthermore, the hotel discovered that Mr. Dutta had issued three cheques of ₹10 lakh, ₹7 lakh, and ₹20 lakh on different dates, all of which bounced. Mr. Prakash failed to inform the hotel management about this matter. The hotel demands stringent legal action against the culprits, stating that they have committed criminal offenses such as breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and falsification of accounts.
A preliminary inquiry conducted by the IGI police has found prima facie evidence of the alleged offenses, and further investigation into the matter is underway.
