Delhi: House panel recommends criminal proceedings against IAS officers for bank ‘scam’
The officers against whom the committee recommended action are current secretary cum registrar of the department of cooperative society (RCS), JB Singh and former RCS Shurbir Singh.
The Delhi Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Petitions on Wednesday recommended “criminal proceedings” against two IAS officers for alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi Nagrik Sehkari Bank Limited (DNSB) – a cooperative bank.
The officers against whom the committee recommended action are current secretary cum registrar of the department of cooperative society (RCS), JB Singh and former RCS Shurbir Singh.
The committee, headed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, tabled its interim report in the House on the last day of the three-day winter session.
The committee said there were complaints about alleged irregularities in the enrolment of members in the bank, payment of membership fees of lakhs of rupees from the accounts of bank employees and submission of fake income tax returns among others.
The report said a large number of “illegal voters” elected directors of the bank.
“Chief secretary (Anshu Prakash) should initiate criminal proceedings against Shurbir Singh and JB Singh for their acts of commission and omission to help and aid the corrupt. The chief secretary should submit an action-taken-report in the House within a month of the adoption of this report,” the committee said.
Tabling the report, Bharadwaj -- legislator from Greater Kailash – said there was enough material on record to conclude that several officers of the department of registrar of cooperative society, including Shurbir Singh and JB Singh, were “acting in connivance” with a group of former directors of the cooperative bank.
“The deposition of former RCS Shurbir Singh and current RCS JB Singh was fabrication of full of contradictions and untruths. They tried to mislead the committee on many occasions,” the report said.
He said many members existed only on paper and no inquiry was initiated by the two IAS officers despite the high court’s order.
“Nothing else but corruption can explain such connivance with the group of ex-directors who had been found guilty in many inspections and inquiries,” Bharadwaj said in the report.
The report said elections of the managing committee of the bank on December 3, 2017 were conducted in violation of the rules.
“The chief secretary should get this examined … the decision on legality of the said election should be reported to the house within six weeks of the adoption of this report by the Assembly,” the report said.
Bharadwaj said around 500 membership forms of the bank were purchased in the name of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and former chief secretary MM Kutty was then appointed as principal secretary to the CM.
He said out of 67,000 members of the bank, only 14,000 were found to be real and alleged that Congress leaders were involved in this “scam”.
Bharadwaj termed the bank’s operations as “open theft” and said they had bought “ladoos” for Rs 11 lakh.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Vijender Gupta questioned Bharadwaj for not naming the politicians who were part of the corruption in the report.
Replying to Gupta, Bharadwaj said it was the interim report and the inquiry would go on.
“I am happy that Vijender Gupta is giving positive suggestions but the central government should not oppose when we call Kutty to appear before the committee for further investigation,” he said.
Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News