Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 25: Division Bench of the State High Court comprising Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Sanjeev Kumar today expressed its anguish over the non-filing of the Action Taken Report (ATR) by the Commissioner/Secretary Housing and Urban Development Department with regard to preliminary enquiry report submitted by a committee of officers constituted to probe Rs 27 crore scam in J&K Housing Board.
When the much publicized PIL highlighting the menace of corruption came up for hearing, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed drew the attention of the court towards order dated May 26, 2017 whereby DB had granted four weeks time for filing ATR on findings of committee of officers, which had indicted the then Managing Director, FA/CAO, DGMs and Technical Officers.
Vide same order the Division Bench had also directed Senior AAG Seema Khajooria Shekhar to comply with the order dated June, 29, 2016 whereby directions were issued to the GAD to submit a chart indicating the progress achieved by various departments in the ongoing 147 departmental inquiries.
Senior AAG S S Nanda appearing for Housing and Urban Development Department submitted that he has already forwarded the copy of the Miscellaneous Petition No.04/2016 to the Administrative Department but the department has not received the same at Srinagar. At this stage Advocate Ahmed submitted that he has the latest information in the matter gathered from media reports and as a matter of fact the Commissioner/Secretary has appointed Commissioner Municipal Corporation Jammu as enquiry officer to probe into the matter.
“However, despite opportunities granted on 26-05-2017 and 04-07-2017 the status report is not being filed on behalf of Commissioner/ Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department”, he said. Advocate Ahmed also drew attention of the Division Bench towards a judgment of the Supreme Court wherein the Apex Court has held that the persons facing serious allegations of corruption should not be given sensitive/public dealing posts. He prayed that status report which may be filed on behalf of the Housing and Urban Development Department may indicate whether the Commissioner /Secretary is contemplating to shift the delinquent officers in order to ensure fair and impartial enquiry.
After hearing Advocate Ahmed with Advocates Suraj Singh, Rahul Raina and Supriya Chouhan appearing for the PIL, Division Bench granted four weeks further time to Senior AAG S S Nanda appearing for Housing and Urban Development Department to comply with the order dated May 26, 2017 and file the status report. “In case the needful is not done then the court shall be constrained to take coercive action against the respondents”, the DB made it clear.
The DB also granted time to GAD and Department of Law for filing status report on departmental inquiries.
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