IAS officers in court against Assembly report

New Delhi: The Delhi high court has sought the AAP government's response on two IAS officers' plea against an interim report tabled before the Delhi Assembly by one of its panels recommending “criminal proceedings” against them in connection with alleged irregularities in a cooperative bank.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher also sought to know the stands of the Centre and the Speaker of the Delhi Legislative Assembly on the officers' petitions which challenges the adoption of the report by the House.

The Committee of Petitions (CoP) of the Delhi Assembly in its report of January 15 this year has recommended criminal proceedings against the two officers for providing "help and aid to the corrupt" in connection with alleged irregularities in Delhi Nagrik Sehkari Bank Ltd, a cooperative bank.

The report was adopted by the Assembly after passing of a resolution on January 17.

The petitioners, former Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS) J B Singh and serving Registrar and CEO of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board Shurbir Singh, have challenged the interim report of January 15 of the CoP and its adoption by the Assembly on January 17.

The CoP in its report had said there were complaints about various irregularities in enrolment of members in the bank, payment of membership fee to the tune of several lakhs from the accounts of bank employees, submission of fake ITRs among others.

It had said that a large number of illegal voters had elected the bank directors as out of its 67,000 members only around 14,000 were found to be real.

In their separate pleas filed though advocate Vivek Chib, the two bureaucrats claimed the issue of alleged irregularities in the bank was already before the high court and therefore, the Speaker couldn’t have referred it to the Committee of Petitions.