Bank ‘scam’: IAS officers may face action

WINTER SESSION Senior officials may be probed for graft in Nagrik Sehkari bank

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Petitions on Wednesday recommended “criminal proceedings” against two IAS officers for alleged irregularities in the Delhi Nagrik Sehkari Bank Limited – a cooperative bank.

The officers against whom the committee recommended action are current secretary cum registrar of the department of cooperative society (RCS), JB Singh and former RCS Shurbir Singh.

The committee, headed by AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, tabled its interim report in the House on the last day of the threeday winter session.

The committee said there were complaints about irregularities in the enrolment of members in the bank, payment of membership fees of lakhs of rupees from the accounts of bank employees and submission of fake income tax returns among others.

The report said a large number of “illegal voters” elected directors of the bank.

“Chief secretary (Anshu Prakash) should initiate criminal proceedings against Shurbir Singh and JB Singh for their acts of commission and omission to help and aid the corrupt. The chief secretary should submit an action-taken-report in the House within a month of the adoption of this report,” the committee said.

Tabling the report, Bharadwaj — legislator from Greater Kailash — said there was enough material on record to conclude that several officers of the department of registrar of cooperative society, including Shurbir Singh and JB Singh, were “acting in connivance” with a group of former directors of the bank.

“The deposition of former RCS Shurbir Singh and current RCS JB Singh was fabrication of full of untruths. They tried to mislead the committee,” the report said. He said many members existed only on paper.

The report said elections of the managing committee of the bank on December 3, 2017 were conducted in violation of the rules.

“The chief secretary should get this examined … the decision on legality of the said election should be reported to the house within six weeks,” the report said.

Bharadwaj said around 500 membership forms of the bank were purchased in the name of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and former chief secretary MM Kutty was then appointed as principal secretary to the CM.