Pb STP dismissed, few others punished for dereliction of duty

The Punjab local bodies department today dismissed a senior town planner (STP) from services, besides reverting ranks of three others on charges of dereliction of duty, an official spokesman said.
The decision was taken by state local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu in connection with alleged malpractices with regard to the Galiara project in Amritsar, he said.
STP Hemant Batra has been dismissed from service, a spokesman said while other officials Banke Bihari, Rajinder Sharma (both ATPs) and Harjinder Singh building inspector, were ordered to be reverted to one rank below of their current position.
Apart from this, seven other officers -- Shakti Sagar Bhatia, Des Raj, Surjit Singh, Ramesh Chandra, Suresh Raj, Manohar Singh Bhatti and Michel -- would be facing the punishment of 50 per cent cut in their pension for three years.

Spokesman of the department said 33 officials of the corporation cadre, who remained posted at the municipal corporation in Amritsar and dealt with issues regarding the Galiara project were chargesheeted for dereliction of duty and willful violation of the provisions of the Municipal Corporation Act and Rules framed there under the Rule 8 of the Punjab Civil Services (Punishment and Appeals) Rules.
After following due procedure as per the rules and after obtaining comments from the charged officials, an inquiry was conducted by Additional District Judge (Retd.) B C Gupta.

The inquiry officer submitted its report in 2016 as per which charges could not be proved against 20 officials while the rest were found guilty.

The inquiry was conducted in pursuant to the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in CWP 14900 of 2010 alleging vast amount of the violations of building bye-laws taking place, spokesman said.
The spokesman said upon reviewing the entire matter, Sidhu decided to give personal hearing to all concerned officials for reviewing or enhancement of punishment commensurate with their misconduct.
During the personal hearing, the charged officials were unable to refute charges of dereliction of duty, the spokesman said.