BENGALURU: Over 11,000 books and
rare documents have gone missing from the Karnataka legislature library housed in Vidhana Soudha.
Auditors from the Comptroller Auditor General (
CAG) have found that records of proceedings of the Mysore Representative Assembly of the erstwhile princely state, debates of the House of Commons and House of Lords of the British Parliament, and debates in the Karnataka assembly in its early years of 1950s, are missing.
While legislature secretary S Murthy confirmed the audit objection about the missing books, library officials, including the just-retired chief librarian Anusuya Devagiri, disputed the number.
“The audit objection has noted that no stock verification was done between 2005 and 2015. We got things crossverified by the library department. While we are bound to file a compliance report with CAG, we can do so only after taking action against officials concerned,” Murthy said. He has brought the issue to the notice of assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar and is waiting for his response.
Officials in the library, however, said the numbers have been exaggerated and the secretary is making a mountain out of the molehill. “There is a rat race for the chief librarian’s post after Anusuya retired,” said an official.
The legislature secretariat has been in the eye of a storm after reports that Ramesh Kumar, after smelling a scam, spiked the proposal to procure briefcases to be gifted to legislators. There was also the controversy of former speaker KB Koliwad allegedly carting away furniture from his official residence after his term ended in May this year. Added to that were allegations of irregularities in procurement of cots and beds for the legislators’ home (LH).
Speculation is now rife that the Speaker has asked Murthy to go on a long leave, but he’s denied the reports.
“Anybody who understands power politics can see the intention of people who are harping about the so-called scams. But this will not deter me from discharging my duties; no one can stop me from taking required measures in the missing books issue,” Murthy said.
Anusuya, who retired as chief librarian in April, said she had given a report on the library stock of books before relinquishing office, which said 6,000 purchased books were missing while the records of proceedings were safe. “The library has 58,000 purchased books apart from records of historical value. I agree that some of the books are missing and there are reasons for that. But the figures being quoted are exaggerated and reports about the missing records are incorrect,” said Anusuya.
