Booth allotment: Details sought of action taken on ADC report

The booth allotment scam seems to have staged a comeback with the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking an action taken report from the UT Administration on the inquiry report of the then ADC P S Shergil in the scam which had hit the headlines in 2010.

According to sources, the Ministry of Home Affairs letter was sent recently to the UT Administration seeking details of the action taken on the allegations mentioned in the report. Since the report had rocked Parliament last year, it was important to clear the air on the matter, said a senior official of the UT Administration.

Incidentally, the report had mentioned the name of Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal (now Union Minister of Railways) and the then advisor to the UT Administrator Pradip Mehra besides MC councillor Pradeep Chabra and several other officials of the UT Estate Office for their alleged involvement in wrongful allotment of booths at Krishna Market in Sector 41.

Earlier, a three-member probe committee of the UT looking into Shergill's report on the scam had initiated cancellation proceedings in seven of these allotments made in violation of terms and conditions laid down for allotment of booths at the Krishna Market, Sector 41.

The report was submitted a year after the probe panel was constituted to look into Shergill's report.

Apart from initiating cancellation proceedings and apparent criminal action against the violators, the probe panel had recommended a probe into the monthly income profile of the beneficiaries in around 30 cases before taking any further action against them. A total of 93 allotments were under the scanner.

The probe panel said the 93 allotments were made between 2003 and 2009. The screening committee, comprising assistant estate officers (AEOs) and SDMs who served during that period, met more than 13 times to verify the authenticity of the beneficiaries.

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