Haryana to seek CBI probe against Khemka

The Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana has decided to seek a CBI probe into senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka's role in allotment of work for roofing sheets for warehouses, sources said Saturday.

Khemka, who was managing director of the Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC) had placed the order with an Ahmedabad-based roofing sheets company in 2009.

Sources in the state government said that Chief Minister Hooda had approved the handing over of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The state's agriculture department recommended a vigilance probe into the matter, but Hooda opted for a CBI probe, sources said.

The department had received a complaint saying Khemka had not followed rules in the selection and allotment of work of the Galvalume roofing sheets. The order ran into several crores of rupees.

Khemka had justified the purchase, saying this was "new technology which had been tested by IIT-Delhi".

The department claimed that Khemka was "in a hurry" to allot work to the Ahmedabad company.

Khemka had left the Hooda government embarrassed Oct 2012, when he had cancelled the mutation of a Rs.58-crore land deal between United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra's company, Skylight Hospitality, and realty giant DLF.

Khemka had also ordered an inquiry into the undervaluation of land deals done in four districts in Haryana, adjoining New Delhi, by Vadra.

Both orders were passed by Khemka after he had been transferred as director-general, consolidation and inspector general, registration, by the state government.

While he was transferred Oct 11, the orders were passed Oct 12 and 15.

Khemka claimed he passed the orders at a time when he had not yet relinquished charge of these posts.

The state government had last month served the bureaucrat a chargesheet, for "exceeding his jurisdiction" and "administrative misconduct" in the Vadra-DLF land deal mutation cancellation controversy.

--Indo-Asian News Service

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