|
Officials looted it Red, now High
Court is very Cross
WSN Network
 AFTER information gleaned under the Right to Information Act
proved that Red Cross funds across
Punjab were misused by Deputy Commissioners and others, the
Akali Dal-BJP government sought to plead that since money has been
put back into Red Cross accounts, so everything was hunky dory.
Now, it seems the judiciary is not in a mood to let it off
the hook so easily. Inquiries triggered by revelations in the media
showed that lakhs of rupees of the Indian Red Cross Society were
frittered away over the years by officials running the Red Cross
branches. Officials bought bed linen, household appliances, clothes,
blankets, crockery, carpets and paid phone bills, car fuel and
restaurant bills.
Now, the
Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice T.S. Thakur has hinted
that a meticulous and in-depth probe into the entire gamut of Red
Cross societies’ functioning may follow. It was common knowledge in
Punjab that
Deputy Commissioners considered the Red Cross funds as a private
piggy bank, available for dipping into whenever the carpeting was to
be changed, the car’s engine required tweaking or guests ate more
chickens.Gradually, they had started buying cars, carpets and chickens
all the time with the Red Cross money.
Now, the Chief Justice has said the issue of Deputy
Commissioners using Red Cross funds — collected for humanitarian
activities — for personal comforts and on government functions
“needs to be examined and investigated thoroughly”. “We can assign
this task to someone as we may not have the time to do it… there are
so many areas to be looked into. We need somebody’s assistance for
this,” hinted the Chief Justice.
An NGO Resurgence India had obtained vast amounts of
information on Red Cross fund usage pattern under the RTI Act, then
shared it with the media, moved the High Court, sought a CBI probe
and demanded prosecution of IAS officers who allegedly misused Red
Cross funds to the tune of crores. Keeping in view the nature of
controversy , the High Court had last week impleaded Haryana as well
as UT in this case. After the nearly two-hour hearing, the focus
remained on Punjab as the Chief Justice also quizzed Haryana and UT
of Chandigarh before reserving the judgment.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice and Justice K. Kannan
reiterated that the court wanted a “clear picture to emerge” from
the investigation to “streamline the functioning and monitoring” of
these societies. In this connection there was a proposal that a
retired High Court Judge be appointed to examine the matter.
The Chief Justice said nobody had donated money for spending
it on government functions and how could Punjab government use the
Red Cross as if it was a yet another government department.
As the
Punjab counsel said that near Rs 2 crore spent on government
functions had been refunded and there was no embezzlement, the Chief
Justice said: “Red Cross is not a bank from which the government
should withdraw the money… how can money donated for a humanitarian
cause be spent on government functions?” The court also took serious
note of audit reports never pointing out that about Rs 2 crore Red
Cross funds were wrongly spent on government functions in
Punjab, even as
this fact was highlighted by
Divisional Commissioners’ inquiry.
14 January 2009
|
Read Also