A Panchkula resident, Ravinder Kumar, who had previously lodged a complaint against Khemka alleging irregularities in procurement of galvalume sheets during his tenure, has now blamed that labour welfare cess was also not deducted from the account of the company when the IAS officer was heading the corporation as its managing director. Ravinder brought the matter to the notice of government on April 15 to reveal that a document pertaining to legal advice on labour cess was missing from the file. After preliminary inquiry, HSWC on Thursday referred the matter to police, recommending an FIR. An official of Sector-5 police station in Panchkula, where the matter has been referred, told TOI on Saturday that the probe was on but an FIR had not been registered yet.
Explaining the background of the case, Kumar said, "A legal adviser of HSWC in 2009 had advised that the corporation would be responsible in case labour welfare cess was not deducted from the contractor. But this legal advice was removed from the file by HSWC officials to avoid action for not deducting the cess. The record was also tampered with and destroyed in order to ensure undue benefit to the contractor. I came to know about these facts when I examined the files using RTI Act."
According to Kumar, after his persuasion, the corporation in January 27, 2014 had deducted over Rs 90 lakh from the bills of the contractor. Earlier, on the basis of Kumar's complaint, the state had decided on a special audit about the award of works worth Rs 8 crore for replacement of asbestos cement sheet roofs with new galvalume sheets during Khemka's tenure. An audit is being done by the Comptroller of Auditor General (CAG) in the matter.
0 comments:
Post a Comment