Chaturvedi opposes govt stand on staffer service
Extension of engineer ‘illegal’, AIIMS ex-vigilance officer tells HC
Sanjiv Chaturvedi, who claims to have exposed multi-crore rupee scams at AIIMS during his stint as its chief vigilance officer, has alleged in the Delhi high court that the services of a superintending engineer was extended “illegally”.
The Indian Forest Service officer, presently serving as conservator of forest (research) at Haldwani in Uttarakhand, has filed an affidavit opposing the stand of ministry of health and family welfare that there was no illegality in extending the services of the then superintending engineer B.S. Anand by Vineet Chaudhary, the then deputy director (administration) at the AIIMS.
He has alleged in his affidavit that Mr Chaudhary, a 1982-batch IAS officer from the Himachal Pradesh cadre, had extended the services of the superintending engineer to ensure that he supervises a project to help others to allegedly commit financial irregularities in the engineering works at the institute during 2012-14.
Mr Chaturvedi, who was on deputation in AIIMS, said that a case was registered by the CBI in September 2014 against the then deputy director (administration).
“Superintending engineer whose basic qualification was ITI in air conditioning and refrigeration did not fall in the category of exceptionally talented medical and scientific specialists.
“In view of the AIIMS regulation, the extension was inherently and patently illegal,” Mr Chaturvedi said, while also alleging that the CBI investigation in the case, which was earlier being probed by him as CVO of the AIIMS, was being influenced.
The ministry had asserted that after examining the allegations, the competent authority had observed that the accusation of misleading the AIIMS president was not conclusively established for initiating any disciplinary action.
The submissions by the ministry and the officer were made before a bench which was hearing a plea for lodging corruption cases against some senior AIIMS officials for alleged irregularities in purchase of items for the surgery department and the trauma centre.