VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Feb. 8: The affidavit filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Jharkhand High Court on the MNREGA scam in Khunti worth over Rs 18.06 crore doesn’t hold a nice opinion about the conduct of the then Deputy Commissioner, Pooja Singhal.
The affidavit reveals that the main accused, Ram Binod Prasad Sinha posted as Junior Engineer (JE) in Khunti District Board, enjoyed undue favour and patronage from the DC and he used to pay cuts and commissions to the DC office.
Singhal as the deputy commissioner and district programme coordinator of the MNREGA served from February 2009 till July 2010.
The ED’s affidavit is in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by one Arun Kumar Dubey in Jharkhand High Court where the petitioner alleged that the probe agencies were shielding Singhal.
Referring to the statement of Sinha, the ED said that he used to pay 5 percent of the project cost as commission to his seniors in the engineering side and an additional 5 percent of the project cost as a commission towards the administration side consisting of the DC Office and the DDA/NDC office.
“The commissions were paid in cash for the purpose of smooth movement of his files, and smooth clearance of his bills. Sinha said that the amount of commission was received by MD/DRDA Pradip Kindo and NDC Abhay Nandan Ambast,” the ED affidavit states.
Sinha told the ED that the commission amount was distributed in the DC office as per the involvement of concerned persons to sanction the project respectively.
“No commission was paid by him directly to the DC, and as per his knowledge, it was taken care of from the 5 % commission given for the district administration and he further stated that Pooja Singhal was the acting DC of Khunti,” the ED said.
But Ambast in his statement denied having accepted the bribe from Sinha. He claimed that Sinha had frequent interaction with the DC, hence he was not required to act as a medium to hand over the bribe amount.
The affidavit indicates the possibility of certain connivance to allow the embezzlement of the public money for MNREGA schemes. Sinha, despite being suspended by the Rural Development Department from September 11, 2006, till May 17, 2010, kept working in Khunti under Special Division as well as the District Board.
He was relieved from the post of Junior Engineer from Special Division, Rural Works Department, for his parent cadre in the Water Resource Department on October 10, 2009, after his suspension was revoked. It automatically ended his deputation tenure as Junior Engineer in the District Board.
During his tenure as a junior engineer in the Khunti District Board, as well as in the Special Division, he was super overloaded with projects of construction works. There were many junior engineers working in different blocks of Khunti. But none of them were taken on deputation to share his overload. In fact, Assistant Engineer and Executive Engineer had made several requests for the additional posting.
“Sinha was given heavy advances for several construction projects. During the tenure of Pooja Singhal as DC no action was initiated against accused Sinha, neither to stop further payment of advances to him nor to recover the amount of advances already granted to him. And even after his relieving no steps were taken by the District Administration to recover the advances already given to him or to force him to give charge to any other,” the ED has said.
The ED said that no junior engineer was selected on deputation to take charge of Sinha. The post of the junior engineer in Khunti District Board was kept vacant till the re-deputation of Sinha from the WaterWays Department.
The ED said that Sinha was immediately brought back to the District Board, as Junior Engineer by the then DC.
“The accused who had just come out of four years suspension, and who was already having two defalcation cases against him in which he was absconding was not only immediately bought back in District Board but also reallocated the same works on which he was working and not only that, he was again given fresh projects and heavy advances without any precaution or preventive measure. He was again kept as a single JE in the District Board, despite the presence of other JEs of other state government executive agencies operating in Khunti district,” the ED said.
In the statement given to ED, the assistant engineer R. K. Jain said during the monthly meeting of various district agencies chaired by Pooja Singhal, he used to raise the issue of appointment of extra JE but the same was ignored.
But ironically, they were asked to provide project advance to Sinha on the ground that “the development project funds are meant for the development and not for keeping the same in the office” despite there being complaints of glaring financial irregularities against him.
