How A Man Stayed in Five Star Hotel For 2 Years Without Paying A Single Penny

A man in New Delhi stayed in a five-star hotel for two years without paying a penny. The incident came to light after the hotel management filed a complaint at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport police station.

The hotel Roseate House in Aerocity near the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport has filed a case alleging that a man named Ankush Dutta stayed in the hotel for 603 days without paying the bill. The FIR has accused him of cheating the hotel with the help of some of its staff including Prem Prakash, head of the Front Office Department of the hotel.

Prem Prakash had the authority to fix the room rates and also had access to the hotel's software system. "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," the FIR filed by Vinod Malhotra, an authorised representative of Bird Airports Hotel Private Limited, said.

"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.

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. According to hotel regulations, any guest with outstanding dues pending for more than 72 hours must be reported to the CEO and Financial Controller for their awareness and further instructions. Unfortunately, Prakash failed to notify the CEO and FC about Dutta's unpaid bills.

The FIR claims that Prakash didn't make any outstanding payment reports from May 30, 2019, to October 25, 2019. Even when he created the outstanding payment report after October 25, he forged it by clubbing pending bills of other unrelated guests into one bill with the motive to camouflage the pending dues of Dutta, according to a report in PTI.

The hotel has accused Prakash of helping Dutta enjoy a long stay and fudged accounts. "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 as 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.

All three cheques (Rs 10, Rs 7 and Rs 20 lakh given on different dates) have bounced and this too Prakash did not bring it to the notice of the hotel management. Hence, the hotel has demanded strict legal action against the culprits as "they have committed criminal offences, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts".