Jharkhand DGP in trouble over withdrawal of SS fund

Director General of Police (DGP), Jharkhand Vishnu Dayal Ram, is in trouble as he failed to submit the utilisation certificate to the Accountant General (AG), Jharkhand, over withdrawal of Rs 5.6 crore which he drew in cash from the treasury on March 16, 2006 to disburse it to the informers who had given or were likely to give useful information of a secret nature.

The AG in a letter on June 17 this year to the state’s former chief secretary, AK Basu had written over non-observance of the financial rules by the DGP Ram in dealing with the Secret Service (SS) Fund and requested to take immediate action as he (AG) suspected fraud and misappropriation of the amount withdrawn by the DGP because the money was withdrawn at the fag end of the financial year when the expenditure of the same was not possible to subserve the purpose for which the said SS Fund is meant for.

The former Chief Secretary, AK Basu and the Advisor to the Governor, TP Sinha agreed with the observation of the AG and asked the DGP Ram and the Additional DGP(special branch) Rajiv Kumar, who had also withdrawn Rs 2.50 crore against SS Fund on March 7 last year to explain the unusually heavy withdrawal of the SS Fund, just a couple of days before the closure of the financial year and non observance of the Financial Rules in this matter.

Justifying the withdrawal, the DGP in his recent letter to the Chief Secretary has said there had been no misappropriation of fund. As under the Bihar Financial Rules (which is applicable in Jharkhand) there should be a controlling officer that the Jharkhand government has not done.

However, a senior officer of the office of the AG told Business Standard that the DGP Ram’s reply to the state’s Chief Secretary was not at all convincing as he himself had submitted the utilisation certificates for the financial years 2002-03 signed bythe then Chief secretary G Krishnan.

Meanwhile, one public interest litigation (PIL) was filed on August 24 before the Jharkhand High Court by a local citizen, Ram Subhag Singh for issuance appropriate direction asking the government to explain its failure to conduct appropriate enquiry and bring the same to its logical conclusion into the dealing of the Secret Service Fund for which the Accountant General, Jharkhand has expressed possibility of fraud and misappropriation as no certificate regarding expenditure as required under the provisions of Special Branch Manual and Bihar Financial Rules was submitted to Accountant General, Jharkhand.