Committee to probe illegal appointments in JK

Srinagar, Aug 22: A House Committee has been constituted in Jammu and Kashmir to look into the illegal and backdoor appointments made in the state government departments, public undertakings and corporations since 1996, an official spokesman said today.

He said the Committee would also probe the works executed in several Engineering wings since 1996 till date without inviting tenders and not taking into consideration the laws, rules, regulations, codes and standing orders of the government.

The Committee would be headed by Prem Sagar Aziz with legislators -- Sharief-ud-Din Shariq, Mohammad Yasin Shah, G M Jan, Shyam Lal Sharma, Jugal Kishore, Mohammad Khalil Band, Shanti Devi, Manohar Lal and Ashwani Sharma -- as its members, the spokesman added.

He said a meeting of the Committee was held here yesterday in which it was revealed that notices to 35 government departments, 20 Corporations and 11 Rural Engineering wings have twice been issued for providing information regarding appointments made and works executed without inviting tenders.

Few agencies and departments provided inadequate information which was not helpful for completing the investigations and timely submission of the report to the Committee, the meeting was told.

The Committee expressed concern over the attitude of departments for non-compliance of orders of the Committee. It was decided that the Committee Chairman would write to the Chief Secretary and the departments concerned to reply within a week to avoid contempt.

It was decided that in case the required information was not received within the stipulated time all Principal Secretaries, Commissioner Secretaries and Heads of departments would be asked to personally attend the next meeting to seek information on the spot.

UNI