HC asks Centre to reply to misappropriation of Bihar funds

New Delhi, Jan 18 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre Bihar Governments and the Chief Election Commissioner(CEC) to file a reply within two weeks, to the allegation that crores of rupees had been misappropriated during the elections in Bihar in 1990s.

A Division bench of Justices Swatanter Kumar and H R Malhotra also issued notices to the State Election Commissioner, Bihar, Director CBI and CBI Superintendent of Police at Patna to file their replies.

The petitioner Bharat Jyoti alleged that informationcollected from a few district summarised that about Rs 50 crore had been misappropriated by the officials during the elections held in 1995-96 and 1996-97.

If the information from all the districts of the state was compiled, the misappropriated funds would be more than thousand crore rupees.

Counsel Asit Kumar Roy said report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had cited ''Misuse and misappropriation of funds-Rs 9.9 lakh, diversion of funds Rs 1.63 core, unauthorised withdrawals Rs 2.62 crore, misutilisation of elction funds Rs 15.63 lakhs and embezzlement of government money Rs 17.04 lakh, idle investment of electronic voting machines(EVM) and fake videogaphy Rs 2.45 lakh.'' Seeking a direction to the CBI, the petition said the investigating agency failed to institute a probe despite lodging a proper complaint.

UNI