The Meinhardt ghost seems to have come back again to haunt Chief Minister Raghubar Das as a PIl was filed in the Jharkhand High Court seeking an independent probe into consultancy worth `26 crore awarded to the private firm in violation of the norms.
Das was then holding Urban Development portfolio in the Arjun Munda Government.
The PIl has been filed by Congress leader Alok Kumar Dubey who has contested Vigilance Commissioner for not giving sanction to prosecute Das. “The Government had given task to prepare DPR for sewerage and drainage in Ranchi to ORG SPAN ltd Company in 2005 at `5 crore. When over half of the task got completed the then Urban Development Minister Raghubar Das handed it over to Meinhardt Co ltd of Singapore which was not qualified and had no experience in this field,” said Dubey after filing the petition. Advocate Rajiv Kumar would contest the case in the High Court.
The PIl further argued that subsequent probe ordered by an Assembly committee headed by Saryu Roy had in a sense indicted Das and questioned the decision to handover the work to the company unilaterally. later, a PIl seeking CBI probe into the matter was also filed which was referred for Vigilance Bureau investigation.
Dubey, in his petition, stated that even the technical committee of the Bureau found that the firm was not an appropriate agency meeting the job requirement and sought for sanction order from the Vigilance Commissioner.
“The sanction order was not given and so the FIR could not be filed. We got to know that the Commissioner kept pending the file for over three years. It is also learnt that the probe reports of the Assembly committee and of the Bureau have been misplaced with malafide intensions. I have also made incumbent Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma and retired IAS officer JB Tubid and now a BJP leader parties in the matter for helping Raghubar Das. I assume that they have been rewarded for their services now when he became Chief Minister,” said Dubey.