9 Jan 2014

CBI looking into DGR scam, Centre tells HC

The Centre today informed the Delhi High Court that CBI had been asked to go into the alleged scam in the Directorate General of Resettlement (DGR) for ex-servicemen.

“We have entrusted the matter to the CBI,” the government counsel told a Bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Rajiv Sahay Endlaw. The Bench was hearing a PIL case on the issue in which it had issued notice to the Union Cabinet, Defence and Finance Secretaries, besides the DGR, in September 2013.

The HC told the petitioner, Sunil Tripathi, that since the matter was already being looked into by the CBI, he could hand over all the evidence gathered by him to the investigation agency and disposed of the case. The Bench, however, granted liberty to him to approach the HC again if he found that the CBI probe was found wanting.

The scam relates to DGR’s resettlement schemes for ex-servicemen under which retired officers started business in the form of security, transport and coal loading agencies and national highway toll plaza management by recruiting retired soldiers.

DGR is part of the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare meant for training and rehabilitation of retired defence personnel through various self-employment schemes. It was alleged that since 2005 serious financial irregularities amounting to Rs 1,000-5,000 crore had taken place in the resettlement scheme through fake recruitments of ex-servicemen and collection of salaries in their names and by forging documents to show deposit of provident fund contributions.

Each of these agencies was allowed to recruit a maximum of 300 ex-servicemen as security guards on a monthly salary of Rs 25,000 to be posted at state-owned companies for a four-year period. Instead of actually recruiting any ex-soldier, some of the agencies produced a list of 300 recruits to raise their salary bills. A few other agencies did recruit security guards, but paid them only one-third of their entitlement, it was alleged.

via The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

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