The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has pulled up the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) over a “botched”-up investigation pertaining to the leave Travel Concession (lTC) and attempts to save the “illegal appointees” in the authority.
Highlighting the “rampant corrupt practices” in the country’s road making agency, the CVC has sought an explanation from the NHAI why it exonerated the culprits by merely recovering Rsexcess amount’ and imposing Rsminor penalty’ on them .
The CVC has sought a detailed within a fortnight report from Satish Chandra, Central Vigilance officer of the NHAI, after noting that his earlier report was silent about the illegal appointment of V K Sharma, CGM who was involved in rampant corruption in the lTC and recruitment scams.
The Vigilance Watchdog’s office memorandum has come after Road Transport Secretary Vijay Chibber last month directed authorities to record adverse remarks in the guilty officials’ Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) and “also recover the excess amount (incurred by them) with interest”.
Eight top officials of NHAI have been charged with fraudulently obtaining leave travel concession (lTC) and travelling abroad in violation of rules that permit only domestic travel. Ever since the scam was reported first in The Pioneer in September 2012, some officials in the authority were trying to “protect” the culprits.
The CVC has also questioned how Sharma was appointed as the Chief General Manager without existence of such post. Investigation have revealed that as GM (Administration) Sharma was also “involved” in recruitment of four Assistant Managers (Admn) - Nitin Gupta and Krishan Dalal, his Personal Assistants (PA) and two other Pas, Madhavi Sridhar and Yogendra Kumar, without the post and Recruitment Regulations in existence and by flouting due procedures.