State gets Lokayukta’s rap over gadgets for school kids

NT NETWORK

 

PANAJI

The state Lokayukta Justice (retd) P K Misra has recommended an inquiry by the CBI into the irregularities in tendering process on procurement of 47,000 tablets given to Class V and Class VI students in 2013.

The Lokayukta  slammed the state government for avoiding a detailed enquiry and not submitting an action taken report or proposed to be taken in the matter.

A complaint was filed by Dr Aashish Kamat in September 2013 alleging that ITG approved commercial bids for procuring 47,000 tablets higher than the market rate, which caused  a loss of Rs 12.64 crore, without following general financial rules and CVC guidelines.

The ITG did not even advertise tender in a national daily to ensure maximum participation and further manipulated pre-qualification criteria to favour certain vendors.

It is pertinent to note here that the anti-corruption ombudsman had earlier recommended for holding an inquiry as to whether there had been cartel formed relating to bidding process during the year 2013-14.

But the anti-corruption bureau kept quiet for two years and was reluctant to bring out the matter to its logical conclusion.

Hence it was recommended that the matter should be entrusted to a more independent agency like the CBI.

The Lokayukta has submitted a special report to the Governor expressing his dissatisfaction over the manner the case has been  investigated.

The Lokayukta went for several adjournments for receiving  the action taken report in the case.

But there was no response from the competent authority, who is the Chief Secretary, to inform on the status of the case.

However, the director of education produced a report along with a copy of notes sheet and remarks of the Chief Minister.

But the anti-graft body refused to consider the report signed by director of education as the action taken report which is supposed to be filed by the competent authority i.e.  the Chief Secretary.

“By no stretch of imagination a report signed by the director of education can be considered as an action taken report or proposed to be taken report as envisaged in Section 16(2) of the Act,” the special report has said.

The Lokayukta found the report of the director of education misleading which was blatant twisting of the orders of the High Court, and  which was challenged by various petitioners on tender conditions favouring certain companies.

The director of education in the report while referring to one of the writ petitions commented that the petitioner withdrew the petition unconditionally as he realised that there no substance in the allegations made.

But the Lokayukta rejected the report which ignored the specific observation of the High Court that all the points and contentions of the parties are expressly kept open.

The  education director’s report also sought further time to take a decision on the recommendation of handing over the case to the CBI. “…the recommendation was made because the ACB did not complete the inquiry in a time-bound manner, (and) hence in the first instance a status report may be sought from the ACB. Once the report is received a decision may be taken by the appropriate authority,” the director of education said in the report.

On the demand for a CBI probe into the issue,  Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in his noting placed before the Lokayukta mentioned that investigation into charges of irregularities in tendering process in procuring 47,000 tablets cannot be handed over to the CBI since there is no merit in the recommendation for further inquiry into the process of procurement through third agency and keep on reopening matters settled and decided by the court.

Questioning the inability of the state government in handing over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Justice  Misra stated that the state government is adamant that the matter should not be further enquired into on the pretext that similar matters had been disposed of by the High Court of Bombay at Goa.

“In any case whether there was a cartel formed or not was never investigated either by the High Court or by the ACB.  The state government for reasons best known to itself, and may be to avoid skeletons falling out of cupboards does not want to enquire further into such aspect,” special report has said.