The High Court has sought the city government’s response on two IAS officers’ plea against an interim report tabled before the Delhi Assembly by one of its panels recommending “criminal proceedings” against them in connection with alleged irregularities in a cooperative bank.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher also sought to know the stand of the Centre and the Speaker of the Delhi Assembly on the officers’ petitions, which challenge the adoption of the report by the House.
Former Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS) J.B. Singh, and serving Registrar and CEO of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) Shurbir Singh have challenged the January 15 interim report of the Committee of Petitions (CoP) and its adoption by the Assembly on January 17.
The CoP of the Delhi Assembly had in its report recommended criminal proceedings against two officers for providing “help and aid to the corrupt” in connection with alleged irregularities in Delhi Nagrik Sehkari Bank Limited, a cooperative bank.
In their separate petitions, the two bureaucrats have claimed that the issue of alleged irregularities in the cooperative bank was already before the High Court and therefore the Speaker could not have referred it to the CoP. The officers claim that the entire process — starting from referring of the issue to the House panel, its report and the adoption by the Assembly — was “tainted with procedural illegality and merits to be set aside or quashed by the court”.
The CoP had in its report said there were complaints about various irregularities in enrolment of members in the bank, payment of membership fee to the tune of several lakhs from accounts of bank employees and submission of fake ITRs among others.
The two officers and Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash had recently challenged in the High Court the notice issued to them by the Question and Reference (Q&R) Committee for not appearing before it in relation to the cooperative bank issue.
The court on March 9 had directed the panel to not take any coercive steps against them.
