CALCUTTA, June 27: The West Bengal Assembly witnessed unprecedented bedlam today, with the opposition Congress stalling proceedings, demanding Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's resignation and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the Personal Ledger Accounts (PLAs) in the state.

The Congress members disrupted proceedings after the chair refused to hear Pankaj Banerjee's (Congress)'s demand to ask the Chief Minister to make a statement on the PLA issue.

They demanded Basu's resignation in view of the directive issued by Calcutta High Court Justice S B Sinha on Thursday, under which the PLA case was referred to the acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, for constituting a division bench to hear the case.

The court order came in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by Mamata Banerjee, MP, on the alleged illegal opening of PLAs and transferring of crores of rupees to these by the Left Front (LF) government.

In her petition, filed on June 20, when the LF was celebrating two decades of power, Mamata, the West Bengal Youth Congress chief, alleged that the officials in the treasury departments opened PLA's and got central funds transferred for `questionable purposes.'

Justice Sinha said in his ruling that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) might make an independent inquiry into the alleged fund diversions and submit its report to the court.

The court gave four weeks time to both the parties for filing affidavits. The judge also directed the district collectors to `oversee the functions of treasury departments under them and make surprise inspections' to ensure that the treasury officers were working according to the rules.

The PLAs, which are accounts opened by officers of state treasuries, are alleged to have evaded proper audit for a long time with no clarifications on how the money was used. Incidentally, the petitioner alleged that the practice violated audit rules, because once any central fund got transferred into a PLA it could escape audit.

However, the LF ministers who took up the issue with the opposition in the Assembly, said they were following the rules enacted by the Congress government: One in '64 and the other in 73 which made it mandatory for the state government to keep the funds, particularly village development funds in local fund accounts and not in banks.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.