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PMO raps Cong leader for shielding tainted IAS officer
A top state Congress leader’s attempt to insulate a scam-accused IAS officer from CBI investigation has received a rebuff from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
A top state Congress leader’s attempt to insulate a scam-accused IAS officer from CBI investigation has received a rebuff from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Mohinder Singh Kay Pee had requested the PMO in October last year not to allow the prosecution of K. Siva Prasad, whom the CBI had named as an accused in the R700-crore rice scam at the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
When contacted, Kay Pee said he would check the records. “I do not remember any such note or letter. I will reply once I verify from my office whether any such letter was ever sent,” Kay Pee told HT.
Opposition parties, particularly the BJP, have of late accused the CBI of being an appendage of the Congress.
Kay Pee said in his letter to the PMO said Siva Prasad, now Punjab resident commissioner in Delhi, was honest, upright and diligent.
The PMO, however, has turned down Kay Pee’s request and said that a case was being built on “merit”.
In January 2006, the CBI had registered three cases against various officials including K. Siva Prasad, who was FCI regional manager, and district managers of the corporation.
Charging Prasad and other FCI officials with “conspiring” with the people involved in the supply of substandard rice from Punjab, the CBI had assessed the loss at R700 crore.
Prasad was earlier deputy commissioner in Jalandhar, the parliamentary constituency represented by Kay Pee now.
The CBI’s anti-corruption branch had lodged cases against Prasad after conducting checks at procurement centres, and found that 97 per cent of the rice samples were “substandard” and failed the prescribed specifications.
“We submitted to the central government’s department of personnel and training that a case was made out against the officer and others on merit as out of the 451 samples, 13 samples failed all specification tests,” a senior CBI official told HT.
