Two ADCs, as many ACDs denied anticipatory bail

TNN Bureau. Updated: 4/22/2018 10:50:24 AM Front Page

MGNREGA Funds Scam

JAMMU: A day after he was shifted out of Rajouri, Assistant Commissioner Development Noor Alam, along with six other officers were denied the pre-arrest bail for their alleged involvement in much publicized MGNREGA Funds Scam of Rural Development Department.

Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu Sonia Gupta today rejected the pre-arrest bail application of seven officers namely Noor Alam, ACD Rajouri (now shifted to Udhampur), Mukhtar Ahmed, ACD Poonch, Suram Chand Sharma, GM DIC Udhampur, Basharat Hussain, Additional Deputy Commissioner Poonch, Shafiq Ahmed, Additional Deputy Commissioner Kotranka, Zaffar Ahmed Banday, Deputy District Election Officer Jammu and Majid Jahangir then DPO allegedly involved in the scam which surfaced last month.

While rejecting anticipatory bail applications of seven, Special Judge after hearing CPO Rajesh Bakshi for the Vigilance whereas Adv Waheed Choudhary for the applicants, observed that anticipatory bail is an extra ordinary privilege and can be granted only in exceptional circumstances where court has prima-facie view that the applicant has been falsely implicated in the crime.

According to the Vigilance Case, that on March 27, 2018 Vigilance J&K, conducted simultaneous raids in the house/ office premises of five officers and seized relevant records pertaining to some purchases made during the year 2015, 2016 and 2017 for the department, personal laptops/ computers besides details/ documents related to properties/ FDRs etc and finally registered an FIR No. 8/ 2018 against two Directors, R K Bhat (one former, ML Raina), three ACDs (2 former), four District Panchayat Officers of Rural Development Department and one General Manager of NCCF, DC Saxena. A private agency M/s Hashmie Enterprises, of a blue eyed person of the top people in RDD, operating from Bathindi in Jammu was also booked for this multi-crore scandal in the Rural Development Department.

During scrutiny of records, it was established that Directors RDD Jammu placed supply orders with selective firms worth crores without observing codal formalities and without receipt of proper indents from subordinate formations/ officers of RDD in the districts. The Directors of RDD Jammu under a well-knit and pre-designed conspiracy hatched with their subordinate officers mentioned in the FIR duly facilitated by NCCF Jammu head DC Saxena and others purchased various items including flex hoardings, tree guards, tiles, file covers, job cards, dust bins etc without ascertaining the rates reasonability meant for these districts.

It was also established that ACDs and DPOs have also purchased some of the items pre-dominantly from same set of firms in similar fashion, without observance of codal formalities.

Scrutiny of the record further revealed that supply orders were split and placed before the firms hurriedly and in a haphazard manner with dishonest intension to obtain pecuniary advantage, which is evident from the fact that most of the items have been purchased on highly exorbitant rates and it has also been found during joint inspections that works related to wall paintings/ slogan writings have been carried out repetitively in short intervals which is a wasteful expenditure.

This has also caused massive loss to the State exchequer. The public servants were found to have abused their official position by making purchases on highly exorbitant rates defeating the purpose enshrined in the welfare schemes meant for poor and needy people under MGNREGA. Not only this, the officers made purchases from the NCCF which was banned by the State Government during 2004 involving middle men as modus operandi to fill their own coffers.

The Vigilance Organisation thus registered a fresh FIR today and its teams assisted by local police and Magistrates raided the residences of some officers and also at the office of NCCF and M/S Hashmie Enterprises at Bathindi in Jammu. The relevant record and documents pertaining to properties were seized from various locations in presence of independent witnesses.


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